Today

Today was rough around the edges. Today had moments so sweet, I truly felt my heart was going to break. Today I was so tired. Today was probably the closest day to what our life is going to be like in just weeks.

For starters, I am just plain roasting and plentifully seasoned with allergies and sinus headaches. It's hot (nope, no AC at our house yet) and tack on expecting a baby in 5 weeks or less (or God help me more) and all of my emotional and physical being is practically on fire. I find the last weeks of pregnancy to be the hardest and this time I have a toddler who has to witness me at my lowest level of mamahood, like today. Well, actually I'll start with yesterday. We went to Target. After an hour and a half of shopping at a snail's pace, Theo getting less patient and irritated sitting in the cart, I then made him sit and behave while I made my way back to the magazine aisle and read US magazine, not yet ready to part with the luxury of being in an air conditioned space. He sat unusually quiet with his head down, kicking at the cart in a totally kickin' tires sort of way. Seeing him like that, at my expense, was something I hope will fade from my mind although something tells me it's going to haunt me for a while.

Now for today. Today I am officially exhausted. And when it comes to Theo I feel primal, like a mama cat who's kittens keep pawing at her and she kind of throws them off, irritable and in need of her own space. Almost always I am able to calmly and patiently deal with Theo when he's being trying. Today I was short and my voice was harsh.

At one point Theo was wanting a fort so I made him one. Then he started crying and telling me it needed a roof. I made the roof. He kept standing up and the roof would come down around his head. He began sobbing and fell into a heap on the floor, irritated that the whole thing kept collapsing and not totally understanding why. Any normal day and I would've gotten on the ground with him and calmly talked out the whole situation until we both came up with a solution that would work. Today in a not so nice tone, I told him that if he couldn't get control he was going to have to go to his room and there would be no forts for quite some time.

Sigh.

And here's where we shift gears to the happy, albeit, eye-opening part of the day.

Theo picked himself up off the floor, snot dripping off his upper lip, and walked over to me. He wrapped his arms around me and held me in the sweetest hug I think I've ever felt in my whole life. At the exact same time coming from the TV was a recording of Michael Jackson singing Human Nature. My eyes were soaked and stinging.

In that moment, I realized that for him life is a lot like that fort right now, the roof coming down around his little world that he knows and loves so much~and he doesn't even get how much that roof will be coming down around him so soon. And me, during the whole fort thing, well I was folding baby laundry and having massive acid reflux and thinking...Oh my God, this is how life is about to get for us~full of change, drunk on fatigue and hung over with little glimpses of the day getting brighter.

Our little chicky is so close to making his way into this world. And Theo is going to have to learn what I think will be his hardest most frustrating lesson yet~that he will have to share his two very best friends. And the roof might come down around us more than once while we all figure it out.

Tonight, as I sat and watched Theo eating Dibs after his cool bath and looked at the stacks of clothes for chicky on the couch, all of us wrapping up this exhausting hot summer day, I realized that I am going to bed tired and hot but full. I am full with this wondrous baby inside of me. Full of Theo in my heart. Pretty sure that I, too, will be able to share my love for Theo with our new babe and absolve myself of these rough days, for realistically I'm sure there will be more to come.

Mostly tonight, I'm understanding that my life is getting bigger.

Lovin' Local!

Theo and I spent yesterday morning lovin' our local farmer's market. What's so exciting to me is that this one is in our neighborhood, a lovely morning walk from our house.

I've always been a lover of the market. In all of the places I've lived, I make sure and find my local spots for fruit & veggies. There's something so wonderfully intimate about meeting the person who grew your onions and placing your dollars in their hands. Talking with the woman who grows organic garlic and then shares her recipes using the scapes and bottles the honey from her bees...You can't help but walk away smiling. A woman who makes her own soaps handed me slice after slice of this and that to try..."this one is for your swollen feet..this one is extra rich for your stretching belly...this one will just make you smile". Another wonderful thing about our new neighborhood market~the fountains. Taking a break, watching the scene, smelling the new soaps in my bag and watching Theo play while soaking my feet in the cool water makes for one pleasant Sunday morning.

A while back, on Soul Mamas blog, she wrote about the River Cottage Cookbooks. The day after I read her review, I checked them out at my local bookstore. I was instantly addicted. For weeks, I'd go on my lunch hour and actually read these books (Confession: most often I don't read a word in a cookbook other than the recipe) and then I'd head back to work and tell my coworkers stories about what I'd just learned~like how to properly kill a chicken if your left handed. I now own the books and love the recipes but what I love most are the messages: grow your own, buy locally & organic and STOP supporting factory-farmed meat.

I also want to share a website I came across a few months ago. I was searching for farms that I could take Theo to this summer. http://www.pickyourown.org/ is a great site to find local farmers in your area with farms that you can visit and pick your own veggies and fruit as well as buy plants and trees native to your area.

Hope you're enjoying summer so far and keeping it local & lovely, too........

This Week

Calm. Lazy. Long walks with my family in our new neighborhood. Gathering with friends. The Evergreen Rodeo (so sad~ I forgot my camera). Father's Day. Eric's 33rd birthday. Cool summer salads. Toasted sourdough with cream cheese, tomato and fresh ground pepper. Mocha's. Ice cold organic cherries (that Theo thinks you put in your mouth, chew and then spit out whole because he watched Eric and I spit the seeds and doesn't quite get it yet!). The pool. Iced sweet tea. Sticky summer kisses. Mad dashes to the bookstore, mostly for the air condition. The sunsets we get at our new house. Birthday breakfast. Theo counting from 1 to 10. Today, our 4 year anniversary.

Life. So simply full.

32 Weeks!

There's something about 32 weeks and pregnancy with me.

I remember with Theo, it was this week that felt so significant, too.

Perhaps it's the kicks, feeling the strength in those little legs so strongly now. A brute kick to my ribs or a direct punch to my bladder..those bittersweet signs that seem to carry along a message from the babe within.. "Hey Mama, I'm getting big in here..are you going to let me out soon or what?"

And my belly...oh so big..and will still get bigger!

So back to 32 weeks.

I was 32 weeks when I started working on Theo's nursery. 32 weeks when I started sitting in my Grandma's rocking chair at night in Theo's room, surrounded by onesies and baby socks so small and only an idea of what it was going to be like to hold and nurture this baby, this baby that still seemed so unreal to me.

And then it was week 34 and I'd still sit in the rocking chair every night, imagining what labor and birth was going to be like while listening to Two Of Us~the version by Aimee Mann and Michael Penn and Ben Harper's version of Strawberry Fields Forever, feeling my heart getting bigger but still completely in the unknown about how much love was really going to come pouring in that first time I saw my baby and heard him cry.

36 weeks, Easter Sunday and the contractions were coming in waves. I practiced my breathing. This was the first night Eric and I sat in our oh~ so ~quiet living room and timed them. Then they went away.

And then there were more days like Easter Sunday and more nights in the rocking chair, the tunes filling my soul, awakening my spirit to one of life's most amazing journeys.

And it is now my 32 week green light to start this little babe's room. To move my Grandma's rocker to his room and sit at night, only this time it's Nina Simone's version of To Love Somebody that resonates in me and the real Beatles version of Mother Nature's Son. I will probably still stare in awe at the itty bitty onesies and socks. Love the big green tree art I bought for over his crib. Still feel anxious about how his birth will go. And I will begin renegotiating with him. You see, I've been promising him things if he'll just turn out of that silly transverse position to a beautiful head down position, and most recently I promised him a pony. Today we saw him and he's beautifully head down.

So now I must think of a promise I can keep and while I'm doing that, the days will pass and it will be week 34 and 36 and then the Day. I am so excited!

my WISH necklaces....I made my first one when I was newly pregnant with Theo. I wished that he'd stay with us and be healthy. Now I'm wearing one again, made with another wish for my newbie. The idea is that you make a wish and seal it by wearing a beautiful bead on silk thread. Eventually the thread will break and your wish will come true. If you'd like me to make you one, email me at woodyboots333 at yahoo dot com. I'd love to share....