Here’s the thing – the baby weight gain thing is kicking me in the tail this time around. Not that I’m gaining more weight than I did with any of the other three, but rather that I seemed to have…ahem…spread out a bit more this time around.
Awesome.
My original due date was September 19, but after the 20 week ultrasound, the technician felt we needed to push the due date back to September 30. Because I apparently offended her somehow upon walking into the room. Or maybe she just hates pregnant women?
Hard to say, really.
So if anyone asks me when I’m due, I will give the oh-so-vague reply, “Some time in September. Mid to Late. Hopefully closer to mid than late.” It’s not a cool answer. I can’t even tell you for sure how many weeks along I am. 25? 26? 27?
WHO KNOWS?!
At this point, I’m starting to wonder if this pregnancy may, in fact, be a permanent condition.
Earlier this week, three different women asked me if I was having twins. “Are you sure?” one of them replied when I told her no. Well, my new friend, now I’m not. Maybe one of them is good at hide and seek? Who can be sure of such things, really? Based on how quickly I’ve grown from cute little bump to MASSIVE MELON-BALL BELLY, perhaps I’ve spontaneously and miraculously begun growing triplets.
If that were to happen to anyone, it would be me.
Other than already being uncomfortable, and wondering how on earth I’m going to make it another 13-15 weeks, things are going relatively smoothly. I haven’t slept well in a week, which I attribute to a potential hormone surge by baby girl. Because carrying girl babies tends to put me through the ringer.
I don’t have any big cravings this time around, although my car did steer itself into a McDonald’s Drive-Thru today, and the possessed pregnant side of my brain ordered a chocolate milkshake. I tried to talk her out of it, but the urge was ultimately too great to ignore.
That was the best chocolate milkshake I’ve ever eaten.
Amen.
I leave on Wednesday for California for a week with my tribe, my fellow creatives who gather yearly to spur one another on toward our passions and goals. When thinking about the trip, I feel near giddy with excitement. But when thinking of the plane ride across country to get there, I feel suddenly light-headed and nauseous.
I mentioned the fact that I’m carrying a large watermelon in my midsection, right?
Two weeks after that trip, we will pile into our (smokin’ hot) minivan for a road trip north. Hours upon hours in a car with a 15 pound watermelon in my gut (that also happens to kick me repeatedly in the bladder…yay me) sounds a bit like a torture chamber, but whatever. It will make the time pass quicker, and time passing means that soon I won’t be pregnant anymore.
Unless, of course, my suspicions are true and I really am going to be pregnant for the rest of time.
I sound like I’m complaining, don’t I?
That’s because I am. Humor me, please?
It’s not all horrible, to be sure. There are moments that I enjoy. I do love feeling the baby kick. It’s really magical to feel those bumps and know that life is growing inside me. I won’t ever lose the awe of that experience.
Other than that, though, meh…I’m over it.
Keeping my eye on the prize is the only thing motivating me to power forward. Well, that and the fact that I have no choice. There’s a sweet baby girl waiting at the finish line, so I’m choosing to focus on her, and I am really, really excited to meet her.
Sometime in the next 13-15 weeks…hopefully closer to 13 than 15.
Not really, but it certainly feels like I blinked my eyes and went from wide-eyed dreamer to coffee slogging Mama, and the years in between sometimes blend together in a humorous reel of days-gone-by.
I remember sixteen well. It was all angst and Alanis Morisette. It was simultaneously knowing exactly what I wanted to do with my life while having no clue what I would do with my life. Sixteen was ripped jeans and boys – toe rings and too much make up. Sixteen was the world at my fingertips without a care in the world, and stress at all the unknowns that seemed to loom before me.
Sixteen was the first time I dreamed of becoming a writer.
The pages of my journal fluttered as I poured out stories, heartache, disappointment and hope. I wrote poems and songs (bad ones, all of them). I wrote short stories and devotionals. I wanted my life to mean something. I wanted to leave a legacy, but at sixteen I didn’t really know what a legacy was.
I thought it meant fame, and maybe a little fortune thrown in for good measure. Legacy sounded like my name in glittering lights. It sparkled with possibility, flashed with grandeur.
This is what I thought it meant: To be inspired, I would have to be an inspiration. I would become someone that others (the world, perhaps?) would look to and think, “Wow. She’s got it going on.”
Then I grew up, and somehow growing up seemed to take a longer time than it should have. I quit looking for confirmation of my gifts in whether or not people knew my name, and I started simply living the life that stood before me in the day to day. I quit looking for the approval of the world, and accepted the approval of One.
I quit seeking to be an inspiration. Instead, I simply looked to be inspired.
Inspired: outstanding or brilliant in a way or to a degree suggestive of divine inspiration.
The word “inspired” can be a bit ambiguous. I mean, what does it actually mean to live an inspired life? The sixteen-year-old me thought for sure she knew – that girl with the Sun-In blonde hair, torn hippie jeans, and clunky Doc Martens. She knew – knew – that her life would be inspired, and thus an inspiration.
Bless her.
The thirty-six-year-old version of me is less sure of the meaning behind living inspired, but I have some thoughts. I’ve traded my hippie jeans for a pair of yoga pants, and my Doc Martens for a more practical pair of flip flops, and I’ve traded my over-confidence in the area of living inspired for a more humble approach to seeking inspiration.
I do still enjoy a little Alanis Morisette, though. For old time’s sake…
– God, the Master Creator, has painted this world with inspiration beyond anything that we, in our human capabilities could ever hope to create, and yet in His goodness, He’s given each of us the ability to tap into His creative powers. It is because of His inspiration that we are able to live inspired. Inspiration is divine.
– We are each created with an innate ability to draw inspiration from our daily surroundings. Yesterday I got my hair done (no more Sun-In for me, thankyouverymuch), and as my friend, and hair stylist, colored my hair I marveled at her ability to create.
“Hair stylists are artists,” I said as she literally painted strokes in my hair. “You’re just using a different canvas.”
Inspiration comes in all forms, not just in the arts. The greatest inventors in history were inspired to create. Advances in medicine are inspired by the great minds of science. All people are inspired – the canvas on which we create is just different.
– Inspiration is innate. You can’t force someone to live a life inspired because “it is suggestive of divine inspiration.” As a mother, I find that my job is not to inspire my children, but to point them toward inspiration. Through the act of creating, of reading, of playing, of laughing, of living, of exploring, of loving, my children will see and feel the inspiration of the Creator.
It will be divine, this inspiration, not manufactured by me, but presented in the world around them.
My job is simply to get out of the way, and let them live inspired.
How do you seek, and find, inspiration on a day to day basis? Is it through nature, through reading, through study…through Alanis Morisette? You can be honest – I won’t judge.
We still have a week of school left, but already I’m gearing the kids up for summer expectations. More and more, Lee and I have felt pressed to teach our kids how to fill their time wisely. This is a difficult task as it requires us to fill our time wisely. That whole “leading by example” mentality that’s supposed to be so effective in parenting, you know?
As we head into the summer months, my goal is to have plenty of fun activities planned, with a fair amount of downtime built in. So, without further ado, I give you…
The Stuart Family Summertime Agenda of Awesome
I doubt this will drastically curb the desperate pleas for help entertaining themselves, but hopefully it will give them a reference to look to instead of tugging on me day in and day out with all their woes of boredom.
This sign hangs proudly on the laundry room door, right outside the kitchen. It is our agenda of all the awesomeness that’s about to go down this summer.
See how exciting I’m making it sound?! Think they’ll buy it?
So sprinkled in between visits to Adventure Island and the beach, my hope is that all of us will enjoy a little more downtime this summer. Time spent reading, relishing the silence, electronic free mornings and maybe…juuuuuuust maaaayyybeeeee, my children who love to hop out of bed before the sun even peeks over the horizon will sleep in just a teeny, tiny bit.
All I’m asking for is 7:00 WHICH SEEMS ENTIRELY REASONABLE TO ME!
I’m not holding my breath…feel free to send coffee and Peppermint Mocha Creamer my way.
So tell me – how do you keep your kids active, engaged, and free from the summertime boredom blues? Do share!
I watched this film last night, and I was struck by the simple beauty of the message. Don’t let life pass you by. Grab hold, live full, go big, and stay in it. Don’t miss the beauty of the moment lost in day dreams, or mired down in the need to document each moment in time.
Two main characters captured this film, though we only saw one of them for a few brief moments at the end. Walter Mitty was a man who let the difficult moments of the past define his present. He quit living when tragedy struck, and he pushed aside his dreams and passions for a life of practicality.
The consequences of this decision left him with nothing but his imagination, and he lost himself in daydreams, longing for a life he might have known if he hadn’t let it slip through his fingers.
The other character, Sean O’Connell, was a famous photographer, a man who grabbed life by the horns. He had no address, no phone, nothing but his camera, and his vision of the world around him. They were unlikely friends, a relationship having been forged through letters and photographs, until Walter needed to track Sean down to find a particular photo, and he finally began living life. Really living life.
When he finally caught up to Sean on a mountaintop in the Himalayas, he watched as the man let the beauty of nature sink in. Though Sean’s camera was set up and ready to capture an elusive moment in nature, when it finally came around, Walter wanted to know why he didn’t snap the picture.
“Sometimes if I like a moment…I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera,” Sean said. “I just want to stay in it.”
I love this line. In fact, I really liked this movie. I loved the message, and I found myself chewing on it for a bit as I drifted off to sleep. I think that everyone has the potential to fall into the trap of Walter Mitty. We all let life swing past us as we give in to responsibility, to laziness, to fear, or simple apathy.
We could all use a little more “Sean O’Connell,” though.We could all stand to grab life by the horns just a little more. To live fully and bravely in this world that threatens to pass us by.
The real trick is recognizing the moments when we simply need to stay in it. Without the distraction of a camera, of social media, of the pressure to document and record. We just need to stay right there.
Right here.
As kids finish up school and you head into summer, I encourage you to make every effort to stay in the moment. Don’t be afraid to unplug, to step away, to capture a moment by living it rather than recording it.
I’m issuing myself this very challenge, and maybe together we can push each other forward to a life more fulfilled, more purposeful, and better captured than we thought possible without the benefit of a device in hand.
He proudly stood on the third riser, second from the end, and scanned the audience. Our eyes met and he grinned, his tiny mouth splitting his freckled face with pure joy and great pride. I pulled out the video camera, flicked open the screen, and as he waved proudly, I recorded the moment for posterity.
And to remind myself that these fleeting moments are worthy to be treasured.
The graduating kindergarten class regaled us with song, clapping and singing their way through the alphabet, the vowels, and the numbers. They proudly showed off all they learned in their first year of school, and I glanced around at the parents surrounding me. We wore matching expressions of pride, of joy, of deep love, and of the pain that comes with knowing a season has come to an end.
Between each song, his little fingers went to his mouth, wiggling furiously at a loose tooth – the first loose tooth. Soon it will fall out, followed by several more, and those tiny baby teeth will be replaced by the bigger teeth that will stay with him (hopefully!) the rest of his life.
Stages passing by as I try not to blink my eyes.
I lay in bed last night, long after the house grew silent, and I thought on this gloriously painful beautiful thing called parenthood. I remembered a few years ago talking to a neighbor whose dog passed away unexpectedly. She loved that dog dearly, and she sobbed as she discussed the final moments with her precious pooch.
A week later, she came home with a new dog – a puppy that looked exactly like his predecessor. I watched as she fawned over the new animal who had clearly become a balm to her wounded heart, and I shook my head in wonder.
“Why would she get another one?” I thought. “Why would she open herself up to that heartache again?”
Dogs get old fast and they die, and it’s sad. Why do we do that to ourselves? Why do we open ourselves up to heartache and grief?
As my mind drifted over that memory, I found myself weaving the narrative back to my children. Love is so mysterious and strange. We allow our hearts to be tangled and enmeshed, because the pure, deep joy that comes from love far outweighs the knowledge that love also leads to loss.
My neighbor’s dogs brought her deep joy. She loved them fiercely. She could have chosen, after the first dog died, to not get another. She certainly would have saved her heart from future grief.
She also would have denied herself the mystery of loving in the present.
We love because of the mysterious connection that comes with that love. When I married my husband, I chose to give him my heart, and I did so without fully understanding the ramifications. We’ve chosen to fight for our love, which means we choose, even in the tough times, not to tear away from one another.
But even if we fight to the very end, and we continue to walk this path as one flesh, someday we are guaranteed to be separated on this earth. We will face the heartache of loss.
We give birth to children, and we discover a love so deep and so profound that we cannot wrap our minds around it all, and yet we know that with each passing year, each milestone reached, we are walking toward the grief of separation. We will leave them in a college dorm. We will give their hands in marriage. We will say goodbye to the moment that is right now, and we’ll trade it in for a new normal.
A different kind of love – the kind that comes with separation and distance, and of a life filled with more silence than bustle, with more memories than present experiences.
The hope of any parent is that we won’t be separated by the death of a child, but for some that is a devastating grief that must be faced. And it hurts so badly because the love was so real.
So why do we love? Why do we set ourselves up for this known heartache?
My faith must dictate how I answer this question.
We love because we were created by the One who Loves. We love knowing that love brings both joy and heartache, because the One who created us, His most glorious of creations, faced the same joy and heartache. He faced the beauty and loss of Love first. He designed the mystery of it all. He faced the beauty, the separation, the pain, and the horror of death on our behalf.
But that’s not the end of the story, and this is why I keep opening myself to love. I know, and believe, that this life isn’t all that is promised. I know that the heartache and the grief of separation are necessary, but only for a time.
If that were to happen to anyone, it would be me.
