“Mom, these toys aren’t much fun when playing alone…”
With my due date less than a week away, Ryan and I have been running around like crazy trying to tie up loose ends before Baby #2 makes her debut. Truthfully, we’ve been in this mode for weeks already, but as time passes it’s as if you have to re-prepare all over again. (I mean, the laundry doesn’t just stay done!) In my opinion, it’s a sad way to spend your last few days before a big change. Deep down all I want to do is live life as we have been for the past few months, to soak in these last few precious moments of how life is before it becomes how life was. Don’t get me wrong — I’m overjoyed and anxious to have this little girl here in my arms, but there’s also so much joy in this current state that I don’t want to just will these last few days away.
This afternoon Emma Vance forced me back into a state of enjoying these precious moments. (Isn’t it amazing how the pull of a toddler on your hand can simply make all those “to-dos” meaningless?) Ryan was out getting groceries, hitting up Target and running by the bank; I was set on straightening up, doing dishes and putting in a load of laundry. E.V., however, just wanted to play (of course), and, more specifically, to play with her mom. How could I say no? We colored her cardboard Tinker Bell castle, dug through a box of packing peanuts, blew bubbles, pretended there were “fishies” in the bathroom sink filled with water…and in those moments, she was my best friend, and I was hers. (Ryan and I always joke about how she likes the other one better…) In the coming days, my attention is going to be severely split between these two little ladies (not to mention that husband and two dogs of mine), all with the goal of giving everything of myself to both of them, being both their best friends — and, in the end, years down the road, they’ll become each other’s best friend. Sigh. For these last few days, Emma Vance is all mine, our world is nice and predictable (albeit it messily filled with toys), and, most of all, calm. Before the madness begins, I’m taking a few deep breaths and soaking in this world we’ve built around ourselves for the past 20 months, and then, after my memories are set in stone and my is heart filled with the last bits of sanity, we’ll willingly enter this sleepless state we call “having a newborn (and a toddler)” and joyfully begin creating a new life as we know it. :)
E.V., are you ready to be a BIG SISTER soon?
“Just kidding! Sure am, Mommy!”