I’m so out of the habit of writing, I couldn’t even think of something to write for the second post. I’m also distracted by the Braxton Hicks contractions I keep getting, which simultaneously is encouraging and reminds me that I am totally not prepared for this baby’s arrival. Unlike the arrival of Seth and Nora, where I was able to start prepping and nesting ahead of time, this baby is coming into a lot of chaos.
When this baby’s arrival became suspected (in April) and we also agreed for my mother to come live with us (June; which has been great) we realized that there would not be enough room for three adults, three children, and three animals. (Alas, now down to two.) So we started the process of building a new house and selling our first house.
I don’t know if you’ve ever read the Anne of Green Gables series, but those books were such a strong influence and presence in my life. I never felt quite normal or like I fit in entirely; the imaginative redhead and her crazy adventures were much more my speed than which NKOTB member was the cutest. I mean seriously – I wanted to be a ballerina and listened to classical music or oldies all the times that my nose wasn’t stuck in a book. That doesn’t exactly set you up for the most “normal” of childhoods.
So later in the series, Anne marries her sweetheart and they move to their “House of Dreams.” It’s small, it’s quaint, and Anne loves it wholeheartedly. When the day arrives for her to move to a larger house that will be better located for her husband’s career and will have enough room for all their children, she sobs and cries.
That’s pretty much what the last few weeks have been like for me. Last Thursday we closed on the sale of our first home, my first own house, the house where my husband and I arrived around our first anniversary, where we welcomed two babies and watched them grow. It was only five years, but they were such important years. I miss my garden, my babies’ nursery, and all the idiosyncrasies of a 30 year old home. It was a good house to us.
Part of my – let’s call it what it is – mourning is due to not actually being in our new house yet. We’re expecting it to be completed sometime in January, and in the meantime we are living in our friends’ rental house. It’s been a God-provided solution (yes, I’m a faithy-type) and has tremendously alleviated stress, but the fact is that we moved when I was 34 weeks pregnant and we’ll move again with a newborn/six-week-old, and that is STRESSFUL by itself.
It also means I can’t make my baby’s room ready. I barely know where the newborn baby things are, let alone where to put them and carefully organize them like I did for my other two. In my crazy hormonal pregnant lady brain, this is just not okay. I feel lost and disorganized and unprepared.
However. I am getting the benefit of a unique perspective this Christmas season. Being due the day after Christmas, in the middle of moves and chaos, I have new appreciation for the story of the birth of Jesus. I have new appreciation for Mary, that’s for sure. I may also be hugely pregnant, but I’m not riding a donkey to a far-off destination where I will give birth in a barn. (I am avoiding barns just in case.)
So Holidailies prompt, what are you most looking forward to this holiday season? I am looking forward to a Christmas with my family in a home provided by friends. I’m looking forward to the arrival of a sweet, sweet baby boy or girl. I’m looking forward to the completion of our house, and I’m looking forward to the new year and the new parts of our life. I’m also looking forward to an eventual end to these crazy hormones, but that will be a while yet.