Entrenched - a prenatal ramble

A completely unrelated photo of Espen contemplating a career in the fast food industry.

NOTE: If you get bored with pregnancy and baby talk, please look away for the next 6 months to a year! With a human child preparing to exit my body in less than two months, I find it a little hard to think (or write) about much else.


We now have the eight-week-until-baby mark planted solidly behind us, and I am feeling myself going into "hunker down" mode. We took our last overnight trip this weekend (a family party in Las Vegas), and it feels a little strange to know that they next time we load up the car for the weekend we will not only have a tiny baby with us, but we will be a family of four.

Now that we're back, I either really just want to clean and bake, or take naps and read. With Espen, it felt overwhelmingly important to buy all of the right things and have his room set up just so, but this little girl won't even have a room for the first couple of months, and we have the majority of the baby gear from last time, so there's not so much for me to prepare. So my nesting instincts have been inflicting themselves on other areas of the house instead. The guest room was flawless as of yesterday afternoon (now contains one houseguest), and I am itching to get our bedroom, closet and bathroom cleaned and organized too. After all, seeing as the baby will be in our room, we'll be spending a lot of time in there come November, so it may as well feel like a nice place to be.

I'm not entirely sure what's up with the baking thing, and suspect it might have as much to do with the sudden arrival of fall as with any nesting instinct, but nevertheless, I have about three things lined up that I want to bake in the next week. Chocolate cake, this zucchini bread and apple cake. Oh, and as of this afternoon, the yogurt cake from this book (interesting book, by the way, even if I think she over-generalizes and sells American parents seriously short).

The only thing stopping me from being a domestic goddess is the fact that I am almost 8 months pregnant, and definitely starting to feel it. I'm big, I'm heavy, I'm off-balance and sore in ways and places that could only be discussed in a room full of women who have already braved pregnancy and labor. The other day I had to moonwalk out of my socks because I couldn't reach my feet without sitting down, and I have to think long and hard about whether or not it's actually worth it to pick something up if I've dropped it. I had to carry Espen for part of our walk today, and had to sit down and recover when we got home, and by lunchtime I am usually ready to curl up in a ball of soreness and exhaustion.

So, yes, I'm a little frustrated these days. There's so much I want to do and my body is so uncooperatively unwilling to let me do it. And in addition, I really want to enjoy these last weeks of having Espen as our only child. His life is about to change so much, and I can't help but want to make absolutely sure that he knows he is as loved and adored as ever. I know it's not completely rational, because Espen won't know the difference until the baby arrives and he is promptly dethroned. I suppose the logical thing would be to ignore and neglect him to prepare him for the change, but I just want to soak up every minute of me and Espen against the world as I can. If I just wasn't so sore and tired all the time. Y'know?

So there's that.

And yet, of course I can't complain, of course I can't! I have a strong body that is amazingly capable of healthy pregnancies. I have a little baby that kicks and squirms reassuringly inside me all day long. In 55 days or so, I'll be holding that little baby in my arms. My daughter. I have a husband and a son that tell me and show me that they love me every single day. I really and truly couldn't ask for anything more.

Except maybe a nap? And a cookie.