We spent this past weekend at Port Ludlow with our dear friends, Mike and Jenny. It was a wonderful five days that went by much too fast. Mostly we just relaxed and talked as the children played, spent time at the beach, played games and ate yummy food. It was a great last hurrah for our summer.
While I knew that we wouldn't complete my very large list on the refrigerator, we have made a nice dent in it. While the new bedroom downstairs isn't complete, the boys are now sleeping in it. This made it possible for Veronica to begin sleeping in her new room and opened up the nursery for the baby. The transition has gone very smoothly and will make bringing the baby home much easier. This alone brought my anxiety level way down.
But even moreso than changing bedrooms, changing my attitude helped tremendously. Before we had decided to move the boys downstairs even though the room wasn't complete, I had relaxed. I came to the point of realizing that the baby will come just fine no matter how many items on the list had been crossed out. It won't matter. But I will still try to complete a few more things before the baby arrives :)
The next month will be quite full. My brother Jeremy's wedding is one week from this Saturday. I will be a bridesmaid, Veronica a flower girl and both Joshua and Noah ring bearers. While I am a bit nervous about being a bridesmaid at eight months pregnant, we are overjoyed to be be welcoming his fiance Alicia into the family. And thank goodness for maternity bridesmaid dresses!
We will also be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary. We weren't planning on doing much as we celebrated early for a whole weekend in May. However, Mike and Jenny surprised us by so generously offering to watch our kiddos for the night! I'm not sure yet what we will do that evening, but I am so excited to have the evening to celebrate.
Our homeschool year begins Tuesday, September 3rd. My hope is to get a few very productive weeks of the school year complete before the baby comes. I can't believe that the school year is beginning in just less than two weeks! Craziness! This summer has flown by.
All of this will be happening in the company of my abundant late pregnancy hormones. It seems that especially when I am tired which can be quite often, I cry at the drop of a hat. Poor Jason is becoming quite practiced at comforting his crying wife. Thank goodness he is so understanding and doesn't seem to mind.
While late pregnancy can be very difficult in a lot of ways, I will be trying not to wish it away. Yesterday Jason and I were able to go out to lunch together. As we walked along holding hands, he mentioned that many people were looking at me and smiling, something I hadn't noticed. It was a good reminder of the miracle that is happening inside of me. When a stranger sees me, they don't see the varicose veins or the extra junk in my trunk. They see the miracle.
Despite the terrible heartburn, the lack of sleep and comfort, the raging hormones and feeling like an enormous whale, there is a new life growing in me. And while I've always known and believed that all of the pain and frustrations of pregnancy are well worth it, that can be hard to remember in the midst of everything. It can be hard to remember why I'm doing all of this. I read recently that there is no vacation from your vocation. This is such a simple, but profound and very helpful sentence for me to remember.
This is my vocation. Living each day at Jason's side as his wife, learning to love him better, mothering our children, carrying our fourth child and bringing that new life into the world - this is why God put me on this earth.
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