Ommmmmmm....

For the last two weeks, I've noticed an almost zen-like calm in the relationship between H and I. It's been refreshing, but a part of me is just waiting for the other shoe to drop...oh wait, I mean for me to go into labor. I wish I could have been this sweet to him during my entire pregnancy, and that he could have listened to me this well.

I really do think that a huge part of our newly functional relationship is that we have been able to play outside for at least two hours almost every day. A little fresh air is good for everyone it seems. Now the question of the day is, how do I make the transition from him cuddling up to me all the time, listening well, alerting me to his dirty diaper status, etc to having two kids?

I'm fortunate that my parents will be flying in for two weeks just after the baby's born, so H will have lots of one-on-one 'Granny and Papa time' because honestly one of the biggest anxieties of actually having this baby has been how do I do it without displacing H? I get that it will be a change regardless, and that there will be some rockiness in the adjustment, but my hope is that it can be a positive change overall. I cringe when I think of stories of me holding my sister in her cradle upside down (without parental supervision, of course, because we shared a bedroom)...

I feel like I've done what I can to prepare H for the birth of C, but was made painfully aware of his lack of understanding when he started referring to C as being "up-down stairs" instead of in my belly. I didn't understand why he started thinking this, although J stated that it was because we had put some of the shower gifts in the loft. H was 'up-down stairs' with me this week, and spotted a large stuffed lamb that had been in C's crib, but that I had taken out when I realized that H needed to see that there shouldn't be a bunch of stuff in the crib (you know, suffocation hazard and all). H pointed his chubby little finger at the lamb and said "It's C! C is up-down stairs!" Great, he thinks his brother is a large stuffed animal! I guess all those gory births on baby story didn't have the intended effect of demonstrating to him what a baby is. This just goes to show that you can do all the preparing in the world, but nothing compares to the real thing.