readying

As I sit down to write this, the windows are open on a low and gray spring day, and I am enjoying a cooling cup of coffee, my first in 48 hours. I was hit with a stomach bug late on Sunday, and spent much of yesterday recuperating. So glad to report that I'm feeling all better now, but boy, that was a doozy.

Today there are many things in the house that are asking for my attention: laundry needs tending to, toddler muffins and granola need to be made, black beans are soaking on the stove in preparation for tonight's dinner. The kitchen floor needs sweeping. I'm already planning on Annie's mac n'cheese, with added broccoli, garlic and basil from my budding herb garden for lunch. It feels good to want to eat solid foods again, after a full day of a steady applesauce-and-coconut-water diet.

But I know that I don't have the necessary energy to check all of these items off the list. I am incredibly lucky that I've been able to put Silas in daycare four days a week, as compared to our usual two, from now until the end of the schoolyear. At first I thought, Great! I can get so many things done! I can work on an e-course! An e-book! (Oh, I have dreams and plans...) But after one week of enjoying this new-found time and freedom, I've had to get real and clear my agenda of almost all but one item: to rest. The truth of the matter is that I am a mere handful of weeks away from my due date, and the mother of a busy toddler, and I am tired. It's a good kind of tired--I am feeling healthy and strong, though I am moving very, very slowly, and aware that more and more duties and tasks are falling outside of the realm of things I should do or care about.

I am still in solid nesting mode, though. This weekend we made great strides on the ready-for-baby front. The bucket car seat was unearthed, checked, and cleaned. We brought home a loaner co-sleeper from a friend's house and I set it up next to our bed, and stashed a variety of baby items in it. (Of course, it has since become a cat-magnet. Don't worry, all of that stuff has yet to be washed, for this very reason.) I remember doing the same thing before Silas was born. The proximity of all these tiny baby things helps me get my head in the game. On the list for this week: packing birth bags and ordering our birth kit. Yep--it's that time.

These days feel spacious and good. I spend a lot of time in the evenings, when the little one in my belly is very active, just staring down at the enormous moon sitting in my lap, and watching this strong swimmer of a boy leaping and kicking under my bulging skin.  It feels so strange, so alien, yet so very familiar and close at the same time. One of the great gifts of this pregnancy has been to enjoy things as they are in the moment, with much less anxiety about the future as when I was expecting Silas. In so many ways, this time, I know what's coming. With Silas, I felt somewhat lost due to the fact that I wasn't feeling this strong connection to my child. I'd expected I would know more of who he was while he was still nestled within my body. This time, I know that this is enough: knowing the hard curve of this child's bottom under my ribs to the left, the sharp outline of his heel to the right. This togetherness, this sharing of each breath, in and out. Trusting that all will be revealed in time. Knowing that, once more, I will be blown away by love and recognition. Maybe not while still pregnant, maybe not on his birth day or even a while later (as it was with Silas), but soon. And when it happens, it will be complete and beautiful and perfect. Just as it should be.