Waiting on the World to Change

Here I sit at our computer, 36 weeks, 1 day.

And time is ticking away, slowly slowly, until Kate arrives.

(BTW -- that is such a funny saying to me -- the baby 'arriving'. As if she is coming from somewhere else. She's actually already here. I'm just waiting for her to come out and meet the outside world.)

I spent most of yesterday and this morning with my parents . . . the two people in the world that seem MOST convinced that I'm about to go into labor any minute. It’s nice to spend time with them because they take care of both Meg and me . . . fixing meals, giving baths (just to Meg, of course), and entertaining.

Entertaining – that is the hard part these days. Keeping up with Meg. Playing with her. Doing things I know she loves to make her life enjoyable. She’s GOT to be able to tell that I’m slowing way down. Today, after returning home from my family, we watched Peter Pan. We did some laundry. Then we played with Playdoh. It was all I could do to muster up the strength (and patience) to sit with her at the table and roll out countless balls of Playdoh over and over. I wanted to be ‘into’ it with her . . . and I usually am . . . but today was not the day. Last week, I had to muster up the energy to take her to the park because I knew she would rather do that than sit around the house for one more minute. Me, on the other had, I could sit around for the entire day.

Keeping up with Meg is really a full time job for me right now. Honestly, I feel like a bad mom. And – from what I hear – this is only the beginning. Once Kate is here and I have to split my time, I’m going to really feel like a bad mom to Meg.

Jim is on his last week of traveling (insert big *sigh* of relief here), and I’m on what could be my last week of pregnancy. Meg was born at 37 weeks, 1 day. That is one week from today. WOAH. But, as scary as it seems when I see it in print, I know we are ready. Very ready.

I expressed my desire for Kate to arrive to a friend today, who mentioned she was surprised that I was so anxious. "I told my son to take his sweet time . . . " was her comment about those last few weeks of her first pregnancy. Yes, maybe I did feel like that the first time around. And, the fact that Meg was an early surprise really made the last few weeks of that pregnancy tolerable. But this time around, I'm really ready to have Kate here so that I can move on and see what our new life has in store for us. I look forward to having some energy again . . . although I know I’ll be sleep deprived. At least I’ll physically be able to get around after a week or so. I guess I’m just ready to be on the ‘dénouement’ of the arrival of our second child. On the other side of the climax, settling into to our family of four.

So, here I sit. Waiting on my world to change.

Tomorrow I see Dr Graham . . . he’s going to check me out and hopefully give me some inclination as to what I can expect in the next week or so. I know he’s great – and he’s always right. Please, God, don’t let this be his first time to screw it up and get it wrong. Any other time than this, please.

(Oh – and a comment about the picture. The elbow band-aid is a reminder of the pool incident last Sunday. Meg insisted that I wear it after the boo-boo started bleeding just a bit this afternoon. Then she kissed it and made it better. How could I ever be lucky enough to have two little girls to love on their mommy?)