Excited

On Sunday after my baby shower, Sena loaded up my van with all the gifts we had just been given without any instruction from me. When we got home, she dutifully carried everything in and then even went a step further; she carried everything upstairs and set off folding and organizing and giving each new piece a proper home.

Today at work they threw me another shower, which warmed my heart and brought tears to my eyes. After this baby is born, I won't be going back to work. It's hard to think about not seeing so many people who I have seen every school day for the past eight years, people I like, respect, and admire. It is the only high school I have ever known as a teacher or a student. It is a warm, comfortable, fun place, and I am so glad that I got to teach there for so many years. I have so many thoughts about leaving and what it means, but I can't even fully come to terms with them yet because, like Sena, who is upstairs putting away today's booty, I am so focused and excited about Alamae's approaching arrival. It is too hard to think about all the changes coming my way and what they all mean. Instead, I'll just dwell on the picture of my almost ten year old daughter. A child who is many wonderful things, but not usually "helpful." However, as we prepare for her sister, she is eager to do anything she can. She jumps at my requests, never balking or stalling or acting the least bit put out. A maturity is taking over her. I can't even imagine all the ways that this new little person headed our way is going to change us all.

These next three to five weeks are always the longest. And the closer I get to the finish line, the longer they will become. Is that physics or something?

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This Weekend We / Showered

Driving over to my mom's house on Saturday, I was trying to brace myself for disappointment. I was pretty sure that I was about to show up at my surprise baby shower, but the evidence in my favor was weak. Basically, I was putting all my hope on the fact that my mom declined my invitation to go grocery shopping with me Saturday morning. My mom always goes grocery shopping with me on weekends. I knew that I shouldn't be expecting a baby shower. This is, after all, my fourth baby, and not even a new gender. I had maintained my position that I should not be given a shower, despite the fact that I really was hoping that the people I loved would come together to celebrate the little girl about to enter our world. 

Thankfully, they ignored my false protests, and when I pulled up with my sister and Sena in front of my parents' house under the gusie of an afternoon thrift store date, I instantly saw my friends' cars, brought together through my sister Claire's doing.

My mom swears that  birth rooms are about to undergo a shift, that the men will leave them once again so that the women can come together to take care of each other. I, personally, want Tom there with me as we welcome our children, but I do agree with her that there is something powerful about pregnancy and birth that demands the interconnection of women. Baby showers, for all the corniness they can often entail, seem to hearken that spirit as women tell their tales. 

At my first baby shower for Sena, we crowded into my friend Lorien's farmhouse, a bunch of girls still in college or just recently graduated. Not a one of us had ever had a child. We had no idea what I was in store for, all of our limited information gleaned from stories from our own mothers and aunts, or things we had read in sociology text books. My friends all drank and drank from the ubiquitous box of wine. There were no discussions of birth plans or placentas or breastfeeding because none of us had begun to formulate opinions. I stumbled through my labor, delivery, and post-postpartum months without preconceived notions except to do things the way my mother had done them.

As the years mount, so too has our knowledge. Babies and older offspring celebrate with us now.  We discuss fluids and membranes with ease and experience. We have opinions about induction and pain medication, vaccines and the introduction of solid foods. I feel so far removed from the twenty year old girl I was sitting on Lorien's rocking chair opening presents that were as beautiful as they were impractical. That girl knew nothing about what was to come and no one could have possibly prepared her. Now my nearly ten year old daughter is here by my side, sharing in my excitement about what comes next.

On Saturday we ate food and made onsies. I opened presents both for her and for me. Alamae received sleepers and a Woody Guthrie album, diapers and colorful booties from Costa Rica. I was gifted a fermentation jar and an oil diffuser, earrings and candles. And it felt like in an instant, it was over, and I was hugging all of these women I love so much as they dispersed back into the great, wide world. The next time I will see many of them, the hard, roundness of my belly will be replaced with squish, my arms will be full of a little cooing girl. This time around, I know exactly what is about to happen to my heart. 

Even as I write this, I feel tears brimming, an overwhelming sense of gratitude-- so many people love me and my children. We are fortunate beyond words. 

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No Budget Nursery

My kids have never had particularly wonderful nurseries. Sena's was the most put together, but back then I wasn't all that interested in home decorating / design, and I didn't really know what to do other than the things found at department stores. I ordered something uninspired and relatively neutral for her room and hung a bunch of artwork my mom gave me. Gus used the same things, but somehow it seemed even less his space. I never loved any of it.

When Arlo was born, we were living in a smaller house than we are now, and we had to find space where we could. His crib was tucked into Sena's bedroom (although he never slept in it), and his dresser was in the living room, which I promise was less pathetic than it sounds. However, even after we moved when he was six months old, I never really decked out his room because I always figured we would have a fourth child, and Arlo wouldn't be in the teeny, tiny little bedroom long.

Now here we are, standing on the edge of a fourth baby, and this time I actually want to design some sort of baby space. And despite the fact that the room is very small, chances are the baby girl will be in there for a very long time to come since I don't plan on moving, and our house only has four bedrooms. The room needed to be able to easily transition from a baby space into a child space, and it needed to be done on almost no budget. So I found myself robbing Peter to pay Paul. I stole the plants from my classroom at school. I hung one of the mirrors my sisters bought me for my bedroom in the baby room instead. I moved a wall hanging that had been in my room to the baby's room since it matched the quilt that had been on the guest bed for the past year. I inherited some Nabsco bird plates from my mom, and shuffled dressers around. I moved a wooden crate from the living room to fill with books. My mom made the curtains and bought the curtain rod (thanks, mom). The only thing I actually bought was a bamboo shade.

I'm not quite sure how I became so dependent on my mom. I am certain that I would get about 1/3 of all house projects done without her help or inspiration. Not only did she make the curtains, as I mentioned, but she also came over and gave the walls and trim a fresh coat of paint and helped me hang everything that requires skill beyond a simple wall hanger.  I guess I'm going to have to learn how to do some of these things because some day I might need to help my own children with these sorts of tasks, but for now, I just lean on my mom.

I'm pretty happy about how the new baby's little space turned out,   I'll be even happier once she's in it.

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