Something about being "great with child" makes me slow down. It's a blessing and a curse. The curse is the aching legs, hips, back, etc. the heartburn, and of course all the whining if you're me
(which, I suppose is more of a choice than a curse, but one that I make quite often). I find myself constantly bemoaning the molasses-like pace at which I knock things off my to-do list and the bottomless hunger I feel for sleep. I'm a sleep glutton.
Today, however, I want to talk about the blessing side of being forced to slow down. There must be some divine design in this slowing that prepares moms for having new babies. It's a wake-up call that says, "Hey, you're about to bring a PERSON into this world, maybe you should look at it for just a minute."
Some of my favorite moments recently have been the kind I could never have planned. We've developed an accidental ritual when Colin comes home from work. He comes in the house and asks Phoebe if she wants to go for a "daddy ride" to get the mail. The mailbox can't be more than a dozen sidewalk squares from our front door, but to Phoebe, it is an expedition. Sometimes she gallops beside her dad like a horse. Other times she'll hop home like a frog. Acting like a dinosaur is a big deal too. She walks like a dinosaur, take dinosaur steps, and dinosaur bites. It can be quite alarming if she decides to roar at you like a "surprise dinosaur." The other day she and Colin were giving each other dinosaur hugs, when she looked up at him in all earnestness and said "I lubs 'dis dinosaur!"
When they get back, Colin and I will sit on the front step and aimlessly rifle through the mail while we talk about our day. Phoebs will bring us rocks and flowers. Dandelions are a particular fascination these days. I think she has taken single-handed responsibility upon herself for their propagation. She might ride her wagon or chase the other kids around the end of our street. Sometimes I can't believe the joy she gets from such simple surroundings. Her shrieks of delight and surprise when she's throwing the ball to her dad or playing ring-around-the-rosies are the bittersweet stuff of childhood. You know it can't last, which makes it all the more precious. It makes me want to take a million pictures, bottle, and preserve these moments for the harder days--and there are harder days--but perhaps the best method of preserving the good stuff is simply paying attention.
With that idea in mind, here are a few of those slow motherhood moments I've gathered recently that I hope I'm paying enough attention to remember:
- Chalk bum. It's a thing. So are chalk feet, chalk hair, chalk cheeks. Baby girl looks like she just left Holi when she's done with sidewalk chalk.
- Puppy mooching, and the delight she shows when she's being licked
- Baby brother's kicks and squiggles.
- Phoebe knocking on my tummy and saying "Hello, baby brothers! Anyone home?"
- Picking peaches low enough that Phoebs can get to them.
- Watching her be swarmed by ducks when she's holding a piece of bread. Fending off the super aggressive man-goose (gander?) when he gets to aggressive. Seriously, man-goose? What is your major malfunction?
- Hearing her tell the kitties in the pet store that she "lubs" them and seeing her laugh hysterically when they pounce on each other.
- Seeing baby girl try to fold my dish towels, saying "In half, in half, and stack!" while she makes a jumbled pile of them.
- Watching her be "in a cave" with daddy under a blanket.
- Snuggles of all kinds.
- Watching her endlessly spin in circles, crash into a wall, and start spinning again immediately.
- Wearing her dads shoes
- Half demolished pigtails
- Her love for any set of pjs that has animals on them. She treats them like friends and becomes very upset when they have to go for a ride in the washing machine.
- Seeing her "knit" with me--it's a process where she sticks my 5 pointed needles over and over again into a ball of yarn and then eventually in my hair. She'll also thread large wooden beads onto them.
- Seeing her try to fix everything like Dada. One day she broke the eraser off a pencil and said to me, "Need Dada! Dada has to fix it!" In her mind, there is nothing her daddy can't fix.
- Pirate face
- Hearing her sing the ABCs and count Dandelions...even if we're still missing a few numbers.
- Listening to her fill in the words in familiar books
- Paying extra attention the the mundane and spectacular in nature right outside our back door. I can't tell you how excited she was when we first started watching rain come and go on the back porch and the first time a rainbow appeared. She was fascinated when apples first appeared on our tree, and I could't keep red cherry tomatoes on the vine long enough to cook with them because Phoebs was eating them so fast. Going slow with her I notice more bugs, butterflies, types of mud, mulch, and dirt. I look at the birds and watch for the leaves to change. It's not that I didn't do these things before, but something about a toddler's enthusiasm makes me feel like I'm seeing these things again for the first time.
There's that belly. We are at 2.25 years on baby girl and 36 weeks on baby bump.
