21 Days

We've had our showers and diaper parties.
The crib is set up and the changing table is ready.
My heart has grown seventeen times it's normal size and is subsequently pumping seventeen times as much blood.
I've got this gestational diabetes bitch under my thumb.
My hips are ready.

We're just waiting on you, little monkey, and I'm afraid you're the stubborn sort you've been through your ultrasounds, wiggly, but uncooperative, temperamental, and unwilling to budge.

I WANT TO MEET YOU!

I got a new job. I'm in Citations now and I just heard they might paint my office. I didn't get much of a raise, but it will help - I'm salary now and will bring home the highest end what I was receiving hourly. After I come back from maternity leave, I'll get down to business I suppose. I'm not doing much more than I was before right now. I'm glad to have changed positions.

Still waiting on a change in child support. But the effort put forth in communicating with A shows progress on our parts. I am able to be the super mom I have been and keep her in check while she thinks she's checking me... or whatever. I am glad that households are aligned and that I can let her know things she needs to know without being a bitch. I try not to be a bitch sometimes.

So, I'm going to stay home with the kids this summer, all three of them. I'm looking forward to it and the mental overhaul it's going to take to get it done. Tears are coming so quickly these last few days and I'm sure I'll be a hormonal wreck once Elliott gets here. I pray for my sanity. Otherwise, these two remarkable, outstanding, young people in my life, my children, have been impressing on me their grown-up attitudes and capabilities and I am so grateful and truly impressed. When that boy washed his own hair and then dried his little body off, I nearly wept. Not that I was sure he wasn't capable, I've told him what to do a thousand and seven times, but he did it and he did it with care to impress me and all I wanted to do was scrub that little head and hug that little naked body and tell him to never, ever, ever grow up and to always let me wash his hair. And in the morning, that girl got up, ate, dressed, and was putting on her shoes by the time I was taking the dog out. She came in and brushed her teeth and was ready to go before any of us. No prodding, no prompting, no attitude. She made herself ready and I was so proud. It's little. It's such the little things, the little itty bitty things that make such a huge difference.

And when Kale was drunk last night, he told me he knows. He knows that this is it and that he has to put it all in check, that he needs to be ready at any moment and that he's ready. And I love him. I do. I am going to be supported and loved and nurtured into this role of having-birthed-a-baby-motherhood more so than I could have possibly been when I started the role of not-having-birthed-these-babies-motherhood because we all are a part of you, Elliott. I am SO very, very blessed.

Please come today. Or maybe tomorrow.