Who Loves You Baby?

As a teacher, I think I get a little glimpse into what parenthood might be like.  Not a perfect picture window view, but a peek inside here and there.  I mean, I wrangle 22 ten year olds at one time and manage to help them learn and navigate fourth grade life.  I hug them and laugh with them and cry with them and most of the time, I really do love them.  But, I get to send them home at 3:00 and go about my business.  I think about them when I'm at home or cooking dinner or trying to go to sleep at night.  That was my biggest adjustment as a teacher - the fact that I didn't quit thinking about my kids when I got home and what we needed to talk about and accomplish together the next day, or wondering about how So-and-so's evening was going because I knew there were struggles at home.  I didn't realize that I wouldn't be able to just "turn it off." I periodically have this nightmare/panic moment when I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder where my students are and that I've probably lost them, before I realize that they are at home in their own beds and I don't have to know where they are at night.  It's normal now though, and I think sometimes Josh feels like he knows my kids too because that's what I talk about when I get home.  

But already, I can tell that being a parent is going to be so much different.  I worry about this peanut all the time while she's inside my body and I can control what we do together each day.  I can't even start to think about what my brain will do when she's a functioning human being out in the world.  Most of the time, all of the time, I'm so excited about meeting her and holding her and smelling her sweet baby head, and it makes me giggle, or cry....and Josh probably shake his head and wonder what's happening in my head.  But then I get these panic moments of what have I done? Will we ever get to sit and watch an entire season of Orange is the New Black on the couch in a single weekend?  Will I ever get to sleep in and spend a day just reading a book? Are my days of wandering around Target for hours over? And then Josh reminds me that "We're gaining so much more than we're losing."  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn't.  Change is scary, but it's also really good.  We get to grow.  We get to stretch our hearts.  We get to test the limits of my anxiety.  We get to have our own little family.

Sometimes I forget that I have the best person to share this job with.  The overwhelming tornado of panic happens when I think about all the stuff that I will have to do.  I don't know why I forget about Josh.  I told him once that I sometimes forget that we are separate people and that we aren't the same thing.  I don't know if that's good or bad.  I love that he is such a part of my life, and part of me, but I can't forget that he's his own person too.  He's got his own stuff going on that I need to be aware and respectful of.

But even better, he's good at stuff.  Good at stuff that I'm so not good at.  When we were working on the nursery, I had this vision of what I wanted it to look like and feel like.  I saw it so perfectly, but there was no way I was going to actually make it happen.  And then Josh said, "I can do that!" and he did.  He built it and painted it and created it and it's beautiful.  Now, to be fair, it wasn't a walk in the park - there may have been a crying meltdown on my part because he just wasn't listening to what I wanted and was making the gold flowers all wrong, but we got there and it worked.  Team work baby.

Last night we had a Basics of Baby Care Class at the hospital.  We now know how to swaddle, sponge bathe, and change diapers like champions.  Bring it on Vivi.  We are now totally prepared for parenthood.  While we were there, they mentioned helpful things about baby proofing the house, changing the temperature on the hot water heater, skin-to-skin time with mommy after birth, breastfeeding, and basically lots of things to crowd my already crowded brain.  Through some of that, I was all, Got it - I've already read 10 blogs about how to swaddle a baby.  Arms up, arms down, in the Woombie that I ordered on amazon - you name it, I swaddle it.  Skin-to-skin time? Got it.  We'll snuggle ALL day.  In front of the window to help the jaundice? Yes ma'am. Mama needs some sunshine too. I even have one of those Nose Freida snot suckers that I actually put in my mouth and suck boogers out with. Then the other stuff got fuzzy and I felt tired and defeated.  But you know what happened right when we walked in the door?  Josh got to work on the hot water heater....first thing. We talked about baby monitors and baby proofing things and I didn't even bring it up.  Again, not sure why I'm surprised, but I am really grateful.  Grateful and appreciative that my baby daddy is going to be a really great Daddy.  And I can just take a chill pill and go with it and worry about swaddling, because he's got the rest of it covered.  Or at least parts of it, and we can fill in the gaps together.

Viv's stand-in for the night.
She looks grumpy.  Probably because she knows we're going to practice sticking thermometers in her butt.

The proud Papa.

The most important lesson of the night - baby selfies.
I clearly need more practice.

In unrelated news, I'm 38 weeks pregnant today!  I went to the doctor yesterday and my belly is "measuring big."  Apparently, I went a little overboard with the ice cream.  The doctor said he thinks she'll be around 8 pounds if I deliver on my due date, but it's hard to tell, so he scheduled an ultrasound for next week to "make sure we don't get surprised by a ten pounder."  That's right - I could be delivering a ten pound baby in just two short weeks.  Let's all start praying now.