38 Weeks

Dear my darling second baby,

My mind, my thoughts, my heart…constantly stirring.

Trying to formulate some tangible image of what it actually looks like to be ready to receive a new life into our established little world.  Silly really, I know better.  It doesn’t work that way.

Yes, our supplies are gathered and organized.  But to have some notion that all emotions, projects, and worries will be checked off and wrapped up neatly before you arrive?  Hardly!  That is a peace and place of contentment that can’t be constructed by my own attempts, but by choosing to receive it from my Savior.  A promise from Him that I too often forget.

Yesterday a group of dear women, fairly new in my life, prayed over you and me.  I felt light and lifted for the rest of the day.  I didn’t realize how much I needed it, the simple confession of need and the receiving of prayer.

It’s a bad habit I’m afraid I developed.  This subconscious tightening around myself, as if I’m holding my breath whenever a lot is weighing on my mind.  When here my entire life I’ve been surrounded by love and support and people willing to shoulder it with me.  It’s such a gift and a blessing you get to be born into.

So as I’m choosing to trust God’s grace and provision for what mothering a 2 year old and newborn will look like, I’m reminded of a few things.

If I’ve learned anything in the two short years of being a mother, it’s that while tips and books and guidelines and advice are nice and can be very helpful, mothering is relational.  For me, it was getting to know your sister that shaped how I mothered her.

And so it will be with you.  I look forward to getting to know you and letting that help shape the changes that will happen as our family grows from 3 to 4.   

I will be holding you soon my love.

Love,

Mama

37 Weeks

Dear my 2nd little one,

It’s March.  

A month that holds the first nod towards longer days.  It holds the official start of Spring.  This year it even holds the beloved Easter holiday, the celebration of the resurrection of our Savior.

What else…

Your father celebrates 10 years of entrepreneurship and all the hard work and perseverance that entails.   

Your sister turns 2.  This crazy, smart, beautiful 2 year old toddler-girl, little person. 

And you know what else baby?  We get to meet you. 

This month.  The month of March.  We get to meet you.

There’s a lot going on right now.  Enough to where my mind seems to be constantly running towards something.  I know we’re ready.  Our supplies are gathered and organized and ready to go.  But I guess I just imagined these final weeks would be a calendar cleared, peaceful, contemplative wait for your arrival.  Like our little family of three could exit life for the remaining weeks and hunker down in a cozy cabin in the woods, with no calendar, no clock, no tracking of time.  Just waiting for you.   

That’s not exactly reality right now.  And I’m becoming okay with that.  

Because the truth is, your arrival has already been planned.  Planned since the beginning of time.  The where, the when, the how?  Already planned and known by the Creator.  A good and perfect Creator, with good and perfect timing.

So I surrender control.  I clear my heart of worry and clutter and circumstance and I wait.   

I will patiently and peacefully wait for you. 

Here’s to a month of new, and a see you soon.

Love, 

Mama

A little, big girl bed

Three weeks now.  In your big girl bed.  Well, your little bed.  Which is what you insist on calling it.  Because Mama and Daddy have a big bed, and obviously your bed is not as big.  Hence, you’re so proud of sleeping in your little, big girl bed.

We take turns lying down with you each night, usually for 10 to 15 minutes.  I love it.  You’re giddy.  Like your very own slumber party every night.  You snuggle and pat my neck.  You talk to yourself, random thoughts and words and names.  I struggle to stifle a laugh.  You whisper, ‘hey mama’, in your giggle, sing-song voice, and reach out in the darkness trying to find my face where you cup my cheek with your hand.  

When I gently remind you that it’s time to go to sleep, you direct your attention to your unborn sibling.  You hug and kiss my belly, resting your head on the swell.  I once again have to intervene when you begin trying to tickle the baby, squealing, ‘tickletickletickle!’.  You don’t object.  You just settle back on your pillow, one more pat on my arm to confirm my presence, and I hear your breath become louder, heavier, slower.  I roll off the side and tiptoe out to the hallway, trying to avoid the squeakiest floor boards.

The first two weeks we would usually get a visit in the early morning hours.  A little hand reaching over the bed, a little voice asking, ‘mama, daddy, big bed, big bed?’  We take you back to your room for the remaining few hours.  Explaining that the moon is still out, which tells us it’s still time to sleep.  But even that no longer happens.  You are back to sleeping through the night.

 

I've become just as anxious for daylight as you are.  No more waking to cries for freedom and removal from your crib.  Just a pitter patter and a ‘hey mama!’ 

Not a bad way to wake.

*a special thanks to Nana for coming to help with the finger painting wall art and the stars on the wall, Lucy refers daily to Nana's stars :) * 

And just like that, another glance over our shoulders at our first baby and one more nod in the direction of this amazing little girl you're becoming.

35 Weeks

Dear 2nd baby,

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)...
~e.e. cummings

I love that this beautiful  poem holds such a literal meaning during pregnancy.

Only a few more weeks until you join your sister, another part of my heart living and breathing outside of my body.

But until then, we get to continue along together.  Never apart, not for a second.

To carry your heart inside of me is something I can assure you I do not take for granted.

I dare not rush these last weeks.  No amount of eager anticipation for your arrival can overshadow the peace that comes from having you tucked away in the safest of nests, spending your every second growing and resting to the sounds and vibrations of our heartbeats as physically close as they ever will be.

All my love,
Mama

How he loves: to my valentine

It's Valentine's Eve, and I've been thinking about my Valentine.

The way he first pursued me and the way he still pursues me in a hundred tiny ways.

Ways that could be missed if I didn't choose to take note, give thanks, and continue to learn how his heart speaks to mine.

He gives and he serves.  He protects and he guides.

His 'I love you' doesn't always look like mine.  Sometimes it's even hard to recognize in the context of my own preconceived notions of how love should be expressed.

But it's there and it's real.  So, so real.

I'm thankful for the real stuff.  The kind that stretches and pulls and shapes you into a better person then you were before.

I want to start compiling all these stories and examples of what love looks like in a marriage.  Things to share with our children.  The beautiful and powerful stuff.  The vulnerable and challenging stuff.  The wide open way God takes the selfish and ugly parts and uses this other person to hurdle each other toward the cross.  To look at the example of Christ and see that He is the way this kind of love all works out.  Learning to give mercy and grace and to receive it even more, transforms and unites more than I could have ever imagined.  What a gift that is.

There's a particular memory that's been on repeat in my mind a lot lately.  Gearing up for birth number two, it's a memory that makes me smile and washes me in peace.  It steadies me for what's to come.  It makes me send up just another infinite prayer of thanks for this man who is my husband.

The plan was for him to be the one to catch our first child.  To be the first to place hands on this new life we created.   But by the final hour of pushing, I was exhausted.  Beyond exhausted, I was spent.  I felt like everything I had was already given, yet no child had emerged.  Without thinking he climbed up on the bed behind me, this protective shell with strength to lend me.  He literally held me up, curled me into each push.  And looking over my shoulder, we both watched our firstborn enter this world.  Different plans, different perspectives, becoming one.  The same view.  That’s what we do.  Never a so opposite two, but looking, moving, working, and loving in the same direction. 

Happy Valentine's Day