Tick, Tick, Tick

Our iPad app informs me that we have 41 days.  Yeah, sure.  I so don't believe it and am guessing a month at best.  Which is a little surreal.  And random...totally had a dream where my skin was practically translucent and I could see her little hands with little nails pushed up against my skin, and she was turned wrong and I just sort of manipulated her into being head down again (she's been in the ready position for the last month, with her head whoa down). 

G and I are rushing to try and get a gazillion and one things done.  We're in the process of getting new bedroom furniture but there are things that have to happen before then, so it may not be ordered until right before she gets here.  Add in needing new carpet in our bedroom (thanks to Max ripping up the edge by the door), and we're simply moving on along.

And diapers!  Holy moly!  We've got covers and all-in-ones and pockets.  Allie from Wardrobe Oxygen is mailing out the fitteds and pre-folds that I'm buying from her on Monday.  We've got snappis (used instead of pins) and wet bags and cloth wipes and a friend is even sewing me some flannel ones too.  The diaper sprayer is in the bathroom waiting until it needs to be installed.  And I won some Angel Baby Bottom Balm a while back, so that's ready to go to.  Still need to pick up the disposable liners (to be used in conjunction with the cream if needed), but otherwise I think we're pretty much set for her whole diapering life.

There is very little left on my list of things to get. We finally hunted down some mitts so she won't scratch herself, picked up a comb and brush (because the sonogram is showing a nice head of hair already), we have a thermometer and nail clippers and I'm ordering a nosefrida aspirator.  I have burt's bees baby oil and at a baby thing I went to the gift bags had a full size of the Weleda Calendula Shampoo and Body Wash.  I've got a breastpump (that turns out is reimbursable by my insurance, so yay!), glass bottles (so G can feed her sometimes and I can drink martinis on occasion), and nursing covers.  Still need to get a couple more nursing tops and pads. 

Our car seat has been in our car for a couple weeks (though we still need to figure out the latch system and get it actually installed correctly).  Our stroller is ready to go for walks.  And I have a sleepy wrap, a freehand mei tai, a linen sakura bloom (I bought when a store was closing down recently), a rockin' baby sling (we got on sale when they were switching owners), a slingling pouch sling (for when she's really little...found at a consignment store), and a Beco Gemini I won last fall at my conference.  Basically we're good to go for transportation. 

So now it's just finishing up organizing the whole home, stocking the freezer, and cleaning.  The diaper bag is getting packed with items to take to the birth center, my bag will be packed soon, and we're ready for whenever she decides she is.  Thank goodness the hypnobabies package should be here this week.  It seems just the other day I was sitting shocked that a baby we never expected to get to have was in fact already growing, and now with weeks to go, I'm just antsy to meet her little self. 

Little Miss E,

I look forward to the day when you can read these letters.  I hope that even when you're a teenager, and the world seems topsy turvy and like no one understands how you feel that you will know you are deeply loved.

We essentially spent the whole weekend continuing to prepare for you.  I finally hunted down a few items still needed to check off the list for you.  We cleaned out most of the office and built bookcases almost all the way to the ceiling (and if your daddy gets his way they might go all the way up!).  We plan to spend a lot of time in there curled up watching movies and reading books with you.  And we're even planning to get a basket for some special toys to make having to be in there while we're working (writing) a little more special for you later.

Diapers out the wazoo!

We also did quite a bit of your laundry. Diapers, bibs, little socks, onesies and dresses galore.  We haven't even looked for the totes of clothes in the basement that are filled to the brim with baby clothes we've been collecting for years.  Strangely most of it is girl stuff.  I like to remind myself that our laundry loads will be substantially more frequent once you're here and that this is nothing.  

Your coming home sleeper is way off in the back!

And we spent time just enjoying the time of "just us two."  Except there is always 3 and you indignantly like to make your presence known.  Your daddy is almost done reading you Charlotte's Web.  And today we start really counting down the last month or so of quiet mornings we'll have.  I say that as you flip about in my belly.  So, relatively quiet.

It seems insane.  The idea that in just a little over a month you will be here, that our world will be topsy turvy for a bit.  Neither of us can fathom it (it being a brand new experience after all), but we think it will be quite lovely to finally meet you.  I think your Daddy is excited that you'll be so little in the winter when we normally spend a lot of time in the kitchen and curled up in bed together anyway.  Your first few months will be very cozy.  Lots of snuggles and just being.

But please, no hurry.  I'm just fine with you right where you are.  Safe, warm, and seemingly happy.  Take your sweet time little one, we'll be here waiting.

Love,
Mama

 Little Miss,

I remind myself every day that I am super blessed by your daddy.  That I have never seen a man so in awe and so in love with you already.  Where he is genuinely delighted by shopping for baby things, and his eyes tear up as we un-stuff diapers to wash.  I'll be the one getting up with you in the night during the week, and he's actually a bit jealous... even though he knows he has to sleep to be able to function at work. 

Your daddy has wanted a baby for a long, long time.  Yes, we like our little life, and yes you were a surprise.  But from the moment we found out we've dreamed of you and your life with us.  From trips to the park to dance classes to playing hide and seek, we look forward to all those little moments with you.  After a ton of cuddling you when you're little of course!

He saw you on the screen for the first time the other day.  You have hair!  And when I say we'll need bows, he wholeheartedly agrees.  Some men can't see past having a son, and yet he has embraced the joy that having a giggly little girl in dresses will bring.

You are incredibly loved, little one.

Love,
Mama

We get to see you today. Your daddy is so excited it seems he can't keep it in. It will be the first time he gets to see you on screen live. He keeps whispering to you to smile big for the camera.

I'm nervous. Trying not to be. We have to get a picture of your heart but I'm not worried about that, it's just standard (and you wouldn't turn right 10 weeks ago for them) and your heartbeat is always perfectly strong and steady. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed and saying prayers that the placenta is in the right place. Because I really don't want abdominal surgery. I just want to meet you and cuddle with you and then go home.

You'll be here next month. No matter how many times I say that aloud it never gets any less weird. We're so excited to meet you!

Little Miss,

Oh, you, my dear, are my light and you're not even here yet.  I get so uncomfortable sometimes, with this body of mine staying the same as you get bigger so everything seems off balance.  I laughed yesterday calling your daddy a skinny minny and myself a roly poly and we giggled and walked on, arm and arm through the rain.  But you are worth every single second of awkwardness.

Your daddy has been reading Charlotte's Web to you and the voices he does cracks me up.  Last night he held up the book for you to see the picture, and I said, "We've discussed this." (implying that you do not have x-ray vision through my belly) and he responded that "Yes, we have" and gave me a withering look like I was hopeless, when you clearly had super powers.  You like hearing his voice it seems and he gets close and whispers to you and kisses where we think your head is and he pats the other side and says "baby butt!" He's enthralled with you, and you're not even here yet!

You seem to have forgiven him for being away so long, and the two of you share special hours in the morning while I sleep where you hop about for him.  But the afternoons are all mine, when I wake from what is becoming a daily late morning/early afternoon nap and you hop and flip about, causing my stomach to look like the ocean in a storm.  And I daydream about what our afternoons this winter will be like, huddled in a blanket reading, taking in the rare sun of the days.  Curled up, singing and listening to music.  Napping.  Definitely napping.

We whisper to you all the things you will see once you're here, all the places we will go.  We sit at a cafe and I imagine ordering you a hot cocoa with whipped cream and you getting a mustache.  We dream of each holding one of your hands and swinging you as we walk around the Smithsonian grounds, of watching those flying kites, of picnics in the grass. 

But we've still got a while.  And I'm perfectly fine with that.  You stay there where it is warm and safe and just enjoy little one.

Love,
Mama

I asked G the date today and when he said the 25th, I smirked at him.  He stared, wondering why I seemed so smug.  I then informed him that we had less than 2 months now until her guess date.  He just stared at me, with a look of "holy cow" upon his face.

The stroller, carseat and swing are in boxes in our kitchen.  The crib arrives in about a week (it wasn't supposed to arrive for another month or three).  There is a pack n play in our office, along with the diaper bag and the cloth diapers I've stocked up on.  Baby clothes are all throughout the house as we round up what's new and what we've been collecting for years.  And we have both a boppy and a my brest friend in our living room. 

It's becoming quite clear that she'll be here in no time.  Children's books are strewn about as G has been reading to her often.  I see my midwife every 2 weeks now, and am getting ready to schedule one last sonogram to check my placenta and make sure a normal delivery is going to work.  And we took classes on cloth diapering and baby wearing today. 

It's both scary and exciting.  I sat next to a woman with a 5 week old little girl today and said to G, "Little Miss will be that age around Christmas."  She was so cute and tiny and G's pretty sure he's going to break our daughter because "she'll be so little."  But then I saw him put on a ring sling and a mei tai and he seemed so natural. 

We're still in awe that this is our life.  This thing we never thought would be ours.  This experience we weren't even sure we wanted any time soon. And yet he likes to wrap up around me in the mornings while I doze and feel her kick against him.  He likes to whisper plans for the future to her.  We sat eating grilled cheese with apple slices and glasses of milk tonight and he said, "Just wait til you're old enough for solid foods."  We finished it off with chocolate pudding and he said, "You won't understand how lucky you are for a while to have a mama who cooks like this." 

I just want time to slow.  For her childhood to drag on.  For all the little giggly moments to never cease.  And yet I want her here, to hold.  To teach how to bake cookies and build forts and dance on her daddy's toes.  Not too slow, but not too fast either. 

Dear Escargot,

Your daddy is here!  He's been so excited to be able to feel you.  (He kind of tears up a bit.)  His hand is on my belly a lot because for the last couple of days you've been hopping like crazy! 

We've talked a lot about you.  We discuss names, playing with nicknames.  We look at baby stuff and he's fascinated by how little you're going to be.  I think he's nervous about breaking you.

You are a very loved little girl.

Love,
Mama