Days Go By

These are randoms, but good randoms, just things accumulated over the last handful of days.

Their New Normal, Too

I'm so grateful for friends who let me be exactly who I am right now. A woman who is not just an expectant mother with a protruding abdomen on the surface, but a woman who is thinking and processing so much as life is changing. And they're letting me change and loving me through it. And buying gifties and planning showers and reaching for my belly. In the stretches of days when I am home alone or just hanging with Cliff in the evenings, I'm grateful for the every couple of weeks get-togethers as they may be, the dinners and the hugs and the laughter. For somehow without having really done this before, opening themselves up to our new normal as a part of their own, whether they've had kids or not or whether that's the last thing on their own minds. They haven't run away and I should thank them more often for that - it means the world to me.

Yes, I Have Mom-Brain

As much as I didn't think I'd be that person, I am. Every other Instagram, every other Facebook status update, every other everything = baby. But when I take inventory of my days, the subsist of things like grocery shopping, meal prepping, bank running, lunch grabbing, photo taking, image editing, blog writing, gallery uploading, and that's the humdrum stuff - well - the stuff that I've always been doing. And I don't have the baby wearing, breast feeding, diaper changing, cry calming action going on yet so everything is about preparation... about making space in my home and in my mind and in my heart for a life that will be dependent on us as we're dependent upon each other and the Lord to make this all work. So yeah, while I'm doing a lot of normal things I always do, I'm thinking a whole lot more through all of that about topics which are entirely mommified... cloth diapers, blackout curtains, nursery furniture, baby bedding, craft decorations and more.

I'm a WorkerBee

Speaking of normal things, work is busy right now. Unbelievably good busy and it feels like it came out of nowhere. Isn't that funny how that happens? One day you're in the middle of a few slow months where it just so happens to be okay because of a string of trips... and then even with the weekends full, my weekdays are busier than ever. This past weekend alone was assisting with two weddings and had five sessions scheduled, which, as fortune would have it (as I was really quite over scheduled upon review) two sessions cancelled and I only had three. But a busy weekend makes for an even busier week as all of the follow-up stuff is really what takes time. And it's looking like these next two months are going to be just about the same. And though I'm feeling good and recovering well, I get worn out so much easier these days, and I am without a doubt glad to be giving myself a margin of about five and a half weeks from my last session to my due date - knowing Virginia could come at any time.

What a Man, What a Man, What a Man, What a Mighty Good Man

Man oh man, is Clifford the bomb dot com. I'm serious. I can't imagine how much I will grow to love him and adore him and respect him more every day Virginia is here if, in the days leading up to her arrival, I am finding myself doing the same. The way he asks me to hug him from behind so he can feel my stomach on his back and calls them "Daddy hugs"... the way he talks to my belly... the way he goes out of his way to make sure I am feeling cared for. How he doesn't just tolerate but protects my fragility in moments of complete emotional and physical exhaustion - which given my schedule last weekend - can be frequent. And then through all of that he is so present and attentive to our home and the projects that need to be done, doing them for his sake and mine and making me thank God everyday that I married someone with a crazy amount of work-ethic and problem-solving skills. It's amazing how much more of a companion he has become and he has always been one - I just never knew it could be this much more and steadily so.