How Time Flies by Heather Bowles

Good evening ladies! Has it really been so long since I’ve posted? For those of you who have been asking, I’m terribly sorry for the disappearance act. Since I announced my pregnancy, it seems every thing that happens is urgent, everything is pressing, and nothing can be turned down. I have a terrible time saying no to my family and friends, and the fact is that I know full well that in the next month or two, I won’t want to leave the house at all.

If there is a wedding happening more than two weeks from now or a barbecue happening and the host lives more than two hours away from me, I will not be able to be there from now until Thanksgiving. I am entering month seven, and because it is summer, everyone has brought fish home from the lake and everyone is drinking beer to excess. Meanwhile, my stomach and I are at war with my last surviving pair of maternity jeans, and all I want to do is get some sleep. The little soccer diva inside kicked me so hard tonight that Tabi felt it while sitting with me before bed. The look on her face was priceless! It was a cross between “What was that?” and “Oh no, you did NOT just try to make ME move.”

I have no idea how to explain to my daughter, whose speech is still mostly unintelligible, that she is going to be a sister, or what that even means. Don’t get me wrong. She understands a great deal. When I ask her to bring me a book, she brings me books, when I ask her if she wants “nomnoms” she goes straight to her high chair, and talking about her stuffed monkey, whose name is Squeak, elicits a series of monkey-like squeals from her. But there is nothing in her vocabulary that I can use to prepare her for what is getting ready to happen.

Things are going to change drastically in our family dynamic soon and the stress of even the thought of it is only slightly alleviated by the fact that my husband has finally graduated and is now home more in the evenings. I reassure myself that my daughter is more like her father than me, and for that she is more easygoing, adaptable, and less high-strung. Still, I dread the mandatory 3 day stay in the hospital after childbirth, and as I can barely stay a day or two ahead on processing down to mushy gummable chunks all the table food Tabi eats, I worry how she will fare in my absence. I definitely need to stay home more. There’s too much to do.

Tags: family dynamics, sibling rivalry, stress, summer, third trimester