.thoughts on waiting and preparations.

The floors are finished! Hurrah! We made it through that major project with only a few hiccups along the way (and they weren’t even Rabbit’s this time). R handled everything beautifully, as I was either working or sleeping during much of the project’s completion. She has moved every book and item of furniture on our ground floor at least twice during the last seventy-two hours. rock.star. Also, R’s family came to town today for lunch, which doubled as our Christmas celebration together. We had a very nice time, received some lovely gifts (including a really nice baby food maker), and took up a pool about Rabbit’s birth date, time, weight, and length. It’s hard to believe that we’re only five days out from the first date prediction!

I’m including some photos of the finished product (please forgive me if this is overkill; we’re very stoked):

In other preparations for Rabbit’s arrival, R has put back several weeks worth of postpartum deliciousness. It’s hard to appreciate the depth of food that she managed to get into our modest freezer:

The creepiness that is being able to see our backyard in January. We should be under a deluge of snow right now. It’s just not right:

38-weeks along and we’re still quite fond of one another ;-)

The 38-week belly. More on this below:

My body has CHANGED over the course of the last few weeks. I can barely imagine how I will continue to grow over the next two weeks if we carry to our due date. I can’t even wrap my brain around going overdue (I understand that this is a strong possibility, but I choose denial for the time being). I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to prioritize concerning my physical self postpartum. Like so many things in life, there will be decisions that need to be made concerning my body, but much of it will be left up to a concoction of circumstance, hormones, metabolism, and other elements that are just beyond my grasp of control. Preparing for parenthood feels very similar to this. I have no idea what kind of individual this baby will be. Therefore, I have no idea what kind of parents he’ll need us to be. This unknowing is compounded by having no idea who our other children will be or how they will come into our family. Will Rabbit be smart? Strong? Attractive? Will he have special needs (medical or emotional)? Will he be social or introverted? Prone to anxiety, depression, or addiction? Will he be well-adjusted? Will he have a lot of questions about his genetics? About his donor? Will that never really matter all that much to him? Will he have a stronger bond to one parent or another? And our future children; what of them? The things I don’t know fill up the floor to the sky. I could fit the things I do know into my right shoe (and even those are subject to change at a moment’s notice). There are so many decisions to be made in preparing for parenthood, but I recognize that we’ve only begun to scratch the surface. From choosing natural childbirth, breastfeeding, and cloth diapers to making choices about vaccines and diet, limiting consumer culture’s lechery, cutting back on sugar, cutting out television and video games, and figuring out how to foster a love of learning, of reading, and of art. How do we recognize and encourage innate talents, especially when they might be totally foreign to me and R (like classical music or organized sports)? How do we raise a compassionate, sensitive boy in a world that teaches men to be cutthroat and dominating? How do we instill values like feminism, equality, and generosity without giving our kids resentment against us or the morals that we support? I suppose we’ve had too much time to think about the “what-ifs” and no time yet spent in the “activity” of daily parenting.

Well Rabbit, the floors are finished, so you can make your appearance at your convenience ;-)