32 Weeks

Dear 2nd baby,

Only eight more weeks to go. Seven if you come when your sister did.

Somersaults, karate kicks, fist pumps. These have been your favorite activities. It seems to have happened overnight.

I holler for your dad to come see. You suddenly decide to rest. He says it's his calming presence. He might just be right. He does have that way about him. It's one of my favorite parts of love. When just someone's presence wraps you in warmth and security.

Just wait, you'll get to experience it soon.

Even with all your movement, you're nestled deep.  We still have a hard time getting your heartbeat.  When it's heard, you won't stay still long enough to get a good count.   I can assure you there is no anxiety in this mama's heart about that, considering I watched you kick the fetoscope off my belly.  The midwife and I both seem to think that's a pretty good sign.

Nesting for you.  Dreaming about you.  Waiting on you.

Love,
Mama

Daddy time

I think he's been waiting for this.

I know he has.

He loved the baby stage.  He was good at it.  The patience, the soothing, the holding.  Such a loving daddy.  And he's ready to do it again.

But this, yes, he's been excited about this.  He's talked about this, planned for this.

Working side by side.  His little girl.  Teaching her, showing her, involving her.

And she, eager to learn and to help and to do things herself and to do them right.

So similar these two.

I see lots of projects in their future...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

30 Weeks and 22 Months

To both of my darlings,

The one who, for 30 weeks now, has been growing inside of my belly and my heart, and who I desperately look forward to getting to know.

And the one who, for 22 months now, has been continuing to blow my mind, capture my heart, and stretch me into a better person.


Thank you both for the joy and adventure you bring to my life.

Love,
Mama

Just a note

Hey baby girl,

I just wanted to say hi. 

I've really been enjoying my days with you.  You've been making me laugh so much, I feel like we're just a couple of giddy girls.

You're growing leaps and bounds.  Your hair, your vocabulary, your sense of humor.

You're pointing out numbers, letters, and shapes.

You're singing songs.  The Itsy Bitsy Spider and This Little Light of Mine.  Your favorite verse being the one about hiding it under a bushel because you then get to enthusiastically shout out your favorite word...NO!

I just watch you in amazement.  My smart, funny little girl.

And Lucy, this baby inside me.  The one growing and growing.  The one that still alternates between a surreal fantasy that floats around somewhere in my dreams and a realistic list of preparations and brief panic at how life is about to change...

I look at you and you ground me.

And all I can think, is what a good sister you'll be.

Love,
Mama

29 Weeks

Dear my second baby,

We're already a week into the third trimester.  The 7th month.

As you know we've been a sick household as of lately.  Finally on the mend.  But it got me thinking about something.  Even in a most uncomfortable and frustrating situation, I was able to appreciate something on a deeper level.  Working in our home.

I think my favorite part of staying out of the traditional workplace is learning to realign with the cycles, changes, ebbs, and flows of the seasons outside our doors.  Our schedule and patterns aren't controlled by a clocking-in and a clocking-out, a schedule that never changes or adjusts to our needs.

Like now, during this winter season.  A season of trying to stay healthy and warm.  We slow down, we sleep more, we sleep in later.  It's funny that there's still part of me that says, 'No!  We're not supposed to be doing that.'  But why not?  We didn't force it.  Our bodies, our family, slid into that pattern.  Even your sister has gone from waking around 7am, to waking around 8:30 or 9am.  I will enjoy this pace.  Our own form of hibernation, a narrowing of our circle of demands.  A slowing down, where outings require more preparation and timing.

What a perfect time for me to nest and prepare our home for you little one.

Because then comes Spring...

Your birth month was not a conscious choosing.  I think I'm drawn to this timing.  Giving birth at the cusp of Spring.  When the stirring and anticipation of getting outside are in full swing.  To stretch our bodies, and our lungs, and to explore, and to find, and to experience the newness that always comes after Winter. 

This may seem contradictory to the newborn season.  A time meant for quiet family solitude, of getting to know each other and learning all of your perfect new details.  But it's really the perfect pairing!  Because yes, once you are born you will barely leave my arms.  My need to protect, to nourish, to cover you, will be my strongest desire.  Just because you will not be in my belly, I will still be your safe place.  So as I answer to the Spring calling, you get to come along for the ride, wrapped in my arms.  The demands of schedules and appointments will again be meaningless.  We will simply explore together.  Daddy, Mama, sister, and you.

It is such a perfect time for the introduction of life.  Your life to us, and the world around us to you.

See you in a couple of months.

Love,
Mama

A Lucy Life

If there's anything I learned this year, especially during this last month and season of holidays, it's that as much as our grand visions and scheduled activities and planned occasions are fun and memorable, they are not what's important.

All of those big moments that we build up, and plan on documenting, and anticipate celebrating, those can change in the blink of an eye.  Suddenly seeming unimportant.  If we put all of our efforts into those occasions, then it can be incredibly disappointing when they pass unmarked or simply not as grand as we imagined.

It got me thinking.

I love documenting life, through words, through pictures.  I feel like it's something that will be far more valuable to leave my children and their children than any material possession I could pass down.  What I started noticing however, was that the pressure is always on documenting the 'big stuff.'  Holidays, milestones, special occasions.  And I will continue to do so.  But that's not the only part of life I want to capture. 

It's the little stuff, the every day.  The moments you don't plan for.  The moments that are simply gifts you don't deserve, nor expect.  That's the part of life I want to look back on and be reminded of.

So I started a photo project.  Instead of feeling like I have to pull out my camera and go crazy every once in awhile, I decided to take at least one picture of Lucy a day.  Something that would be easy to commit to and not involve premeditated thought.  With a new baby coming in just a few months, I know life will get a little stressful and unbalanced again until we find our rhythm as a family of four.  But during that time, I don't want to forget what we have.  Those beautiful moments in between the big stuff, the planned stuff, the complicated stuff.

This project is for no other reason but for me to have something I can sit down periodically and scroll through to remind myself of the good stuff, and attempt to freeze the every day in my mind.  I'm sharing it because I received inspiration watching other photo blogs and thought I should pass mine along as well.  I hope it's a reminder though for us to look at our own photos, our own lives, and be encouraged and grateful for who we are and where we've been placed.

It's amazing what we overlook and forget when we allow ourselves to be distracted and caught up in what still needs to be done, and what next event needs to be planned, and what milestone we're waiting for to be achieved.

So here's to just life.  The simple and unplanned.  The here and now.  The every day good stuff.

For me, here's to A Lucy Life.

Enjoy.

A Christmas House

Well Christmas 2012, you didn't exactly go as planned, but you were memorable none-the-less.

We'll pack up our decorations and see you next year, with a new stocking to hang on the fireplace.