Sunday, January 2, 2011

The Passing Due Date/Back to Work Lament

Tomorrow is David’s last day home after over a week of time off for the Christmas/New Year’s holiday. That is, unless of course, the stubborn old baby decides to show up. If he’s anything like his father, he is paying no attention to the time and is likely doing a drum solo on his thighs contemplating having his third “bathroom break” of the hour so that he can read one more article on how to improve his chip shot from Golf magazine. If he is anything like his mother, he is likely ready to go, but cannot remember for the life of him where he put his sunglasses or his cell phone or any number of coupons that he’s clipped in vain. If he’s anything like his older brother, he is hiding behind the living room couch pretending to chomp on a wooden orange, thinking it’s hilarious that his swollen, pregnant mother has to chase him down the hall to get his arm in his coat.

Take your time, baby, take your time. We’re all just waiting on you. No pressure. I’ll be waiting in the car. You just come out when you’re good and ready.

Since we don’t know when the baby will decide to literally rear his ugly head (because they’re all a little ugly right off the bat), Finny, David and I are all a little whiny today because we’re antsy and because we know that very soon David has to go back to work.

It is highly likely that God, in all his omnipotence, knows exactly what He’s doing by leaving our baby in a little longer. Perhaps He knew that we needed some time to be together as a trio before the world flips inside out on us with the presence of another newborn again. For the past five months, David has worked long hours in a demanding role at work to provide for us as a family. This has meant a lot of early mornings, missed bedtimes, and sleepless nights for David and some loneliness and frustration for me.

But, this past week, we got a much-needed opportunity to just be together. We ate meals together, cleaned up together and played together. Finny had someone to chase him and tickle him and roll on the floor with him while I got to put my swollen feet up and just enjoy watching. During nap time, David and I got to play board games and I got some help with the vacuuming and mopping and bathtub scrubbing. Every morning we went to the gym as a family. We’ve been anxious and impatient waiting for the baby to show up, but we got to be anxious and impatient together.

Today, we all sense the tension that comes with the looming day that Daddy goes back to work and our happy little routine of play and relaxation and companionship comes to an end and we are back to the daily grind once again. The ugly truth of it is we need the bad and the ugly in order to fully appreciate the good. Without sadness, we would never appreciate joy, without poverty we would never appreciate wealth, and without hard work we would never appreciate time to build block towers, watch bowl games, play Scrabble and go to brunch at our leisure.

So here’s me pouring the glass half full today in an attempt to ease some of the stress that comes along with the return of the ringing alarm and the rush hour commute. We will miss you, Daddy/David, when you go back to the demands of work, but we will all adjust as we always do and we are glad we got this extended time to play with you.

Now, we’ll all look forward to a little more time with you when the baby decides to get up off his lazy ass and show up, which likely won’t be until sometime this May, after he’s had sufficient time to develop his superhuman lungs, to perfect his water polo game, and to really nail his thigh-slapping drum solo.

No pressure, son, but the car is running and gas was up to $3.09 this week, so you know, whenever you feel like it…

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