This Week

Nearly nine months pregnant, yard work, girly country music

This week, I’m at the point of pregnancy where I’m prematurely considering myself ready for labor, slowly accumulating hospital bag items in a tote bag stuffed in the back of Kit’s closet. Asking my mom to come help me unload my groceries because the thought I might be going into pre-term labor crossed my mind at Walmart in the produce section and the parking lot burned one hundred degrees and I couldn’t find the strength to do it myself. Emailing the company I ordered baby boy’s last two little diaper bag items from twice in one week, because they haven’t even shipped yet, despite ordering them last month. I remember feeling somewhat like this with Kit, however, I think being nearly nine months pregnant in the summer is the difference. Being pregnant with gestational diabetes or perhaps pregnant with a fifteen month old also being the difference. Baby boy is measuring ahead, I’m measuring ahead, and my mind is measuring ahead, despite having quite a few more weeks to go technically.

It’s such an interesting mindset to be in…waiting. Two nights ago, I laid in bed and watched my stomach roll around, trying to discern what exactly I was watching. His bottom? His knees? Praying his head was staying down amidst all his busyness. I have realized there are things to be grateful for since my dreadful diagnosis of gestational diabetes two months ago, mostly just the additional ultrasounds, where they tell me how much he weighs, and my weekly appointments to sit and listen to his heartbeat. All of this knowledge, of his size, his activity, the sound of his heart, and then watching him, just a few layers of skin away, leaves me so very eager to see him, for Kit to know him.

In the meantime, I’ve fallen into a routine of savoring what I have right now: frozen Kind bars and Breyers carb balance chocolate ice cream, my bedroom to myself for a few hours every night, the bassinet waiting out in the hall, an electric fan clipped onto my rocker on the front porch, Minute Maid sugar free lemonade in a can.

Kit has also started taking her afternoon nap in her crib, after her entire lifetime of sleeping on my chest or in the crook of my arm. One day, I just decided to lay her down and see. That precious baby just rolled right onto her tummy and slept for two hours. And while that was a sad milestone, it was a necessary one, as my stomach grows and we get closer to bringing our little boy home. Now I get to indulge in an afternoon shower, even for just two minutes, change into old pajama pants and climb onto my bed with Annie for a nap of our own. Or time to scroll. Or time to write or read, but never time for chores. I can do those with Kit, my sweet little busy helper, who loves to hand me laundry and climb into the empty basket, or hand me warm pieces silverware from the dishwasher, one at a time.

I am consuming an abundance of content every day, perhaps wasting too much time doing so, but enjoying it all the same. Price and I just finished watching Our Friends & Neighbors on Apple, which we thoroughly enjoyed. I started reading Abby Jimenez’ Just for the Summer, a quaint little read that I am not sure will get more than two stars, but I’m happy with all the same. I’m not reading nearly as much as I was last year, when I had three naps a day to fill, a calm bedtime and a sleepy baby to hold, time to spend. And I also can’t quite settle into a genre I’m interested in reading, other than Lisa Jewell’s books, but I want to own them in hardback, so I don’t read them on my Kindle. Last year, I read majority thrillers, and for whatever reason, this year, I can’t stomach the suspense or any dash of fear. But then…these days, what does that leave? I’m finding most romance novels cheesy or entirely pornographic, and I haven’t been interested in historical pieces in years. So that leaves me scrolling Kindle Unlimited, hoping the algorithm shows me at least one or two I find a tad appealing. I’ve been watching a lot of birth vlogs on TikTok, always tearful by the end. Spending a lot of time on resale Facebook groups, buying little sweet things from Boden for my babies, on average $10-14. Google searches: constant Braxton Hicks contractions, what does it feel like when your baby is flipping, why is bedtime so much harder than naptime, and frequent visits to USPS to track various packages and Madewell to spend a gift card I can’t forget I have but can’t decide what to spend it on.

This week, I’m grateful and content for the work my husband did in the yard last weekend, work that I thought I paid a landscaper to do, but ended up being a full two days worth for Price regardless. We spent last Saturday morning in the Walmart garden center, filling up two carts with grass seed, salvia, caladiums, bug spray, ivy. Then every few hours, Kit and I would check his progress. I felt as though I had a magic fairy to boss around…I’d tell him I wanted my pots redone, and poof! there they were. The patio was weeded, the flower beds reshaped, the hostas replanted, the yard mowed and trimmed. All I found myself in charge of was Kit and Annie and the front porch, which we scrubbed with water and Dawn dish soap, the girls discovering the misting feature on the water hose, and Kit discovering she can catch fireflies and hold them with her fingers.

My yard feels how I’ve been itching for it to feel for months now…free of tall weeds for snakes and ticks, free of poison ivy, colorful, clean, like the beginning of a garden, Jasmine crawling up our shed, my pots weathered green, Kit’s butterfly stone with her handprints nestled in the back bed. I’ve been taking the girls out every morning when we wake up to water the plants before the sun makes its way to the back of the house. Kit wears her little pink crocs, and I let Annie run, and it feels precious. Then we go inside, and I turn on the playlist I made for us last summer, the one with Faith Hill and Martina McBride and the Dixie Chicks, and I make breakfast, and somehow, the practice of going outside in our pajamas and watering our flowers makes the entire day just a little more magical.

I thought a lot this week about my own childhood, trying to remember what my brother and I filled our summertimes with, as I watch Kit’s cheeks flush pink and her hair curl on the front porch, waiting for Price to come home. I don’t really remember just a ton of specific activities, but more so just feeling content and comfortable and cared for and happy.

I’ve been ending my days with Kit on the floor beside her crib, trying to help her learn she call fall asleep on her own. It’s been taking an hour until her little body slows into sleep, and I lay there and think about our day, about our house filled with the sound of girly country music and the washing machine going, the excitement of going to sit on the porch with a stack of books and a snack, Kit pulling her shirt up to show me her tummy, because I keep doing the same to look at mine, even though she has no idea why. And then I hear her breathing slow, and Annie lets out an impatient deep breath, and we both sneak out, for a shower and a sorry but fine excuse for ice cream in bed, dreaming of the large chocolate custard with brownie and Oreo I’ll have delivered to my hospital room in just a few weeks.