stinkydog

Happy MLK Day or as it's celebrated this year: That Last Day I have to Panic and/or Get Things Done Before Baby Gets Here. The thing about having a scheduled c-section is that it's a double-edged sword type thing. On one hand, you know when things are gonna go down. People can buy airline tickets to make it for the event. Work Leave can be accurately scheduled. But on the other hand, the recovery sucks so that you also know that for at least 3-4 weeks afterwards, you're going to have the strength of a drunk newborn kitten. Aside from being able to shuffle ten feet in either direction, the most you're going to be able to accomplish on your own is to brush your teeth. And that's if someone puts the toothpaste on the brush for you. So, all this last minute buzzing around isn't so much getting things prepared for Burchfield--hell, he's MORE than all set. It's more like making sure I have an adequate number of yoga pants stuffed into the drawer that I know I'll be able to reach (I don't plan on wearing anything but Yoga pants until April). Making sure the dogs smell less like death than usual. Stocking coffee, that sort of thing.

I've also tried getting Hopper prepped for the idea that his little brother's arrival is pretty imminent but thus far, he's choosing to ignore that fact and focus on his new word: BUBBLES! He likes to yell it out when he sees a bubble. Or a circle. Or a ball. Or anything that could possibly ever be construed as being a bubble. You would be surprised at how many images on TV and in print have this quality. It's something like 500 bubbles every ten minutes. He's going to have lots of quality time with grandmas and aunts and uncles coming up here pretty soon, but I will admit that I got a little bummed last night when I realized that our nightly ritual of me tickling him upside down til he screams Nooooooooooooo and kicks me in the chin will have to take a backburner for a while. I'm not sure how he's going to handle me not being able to pick him up and squeeze him. I know that I hate the idea. I imagine he won't take it very well either. Maybe I should buy him a bubble machine.

I know we'll both adjust and in a month's time everything new will seem normal. Or at the very least, we'll all be so sleep-deprived that we won't notice all the thousand little ways everything is different. I know we're all going to immediately fall in love with the new little guy. But a part of me is sad because I will miss the time we have when it's just me and my boy and he perches himself in the curve of my legs and takes my hand and wraps it around his favorite book asking me to read it one more time, only he gets impatient and always wants to skip to the part when they find the bear and I pinch his sides and he laughs and leans back into my stomach. Where his little brother is waiting to join us.