Making the Grade

It's April 14, 2009, and a certain red and white striped little baby girl is due in 3 months. Someone please administer first aid if I faint upon truly grasping what that means for my life. I can't believe that I am 27 weeks pregnant today. Ms. Pepps' kicks are getting stronger and stronger. This morning they woke me up at 5:30 ish, and it's a pretty majestic wake up call! I'll take that to my bunk ass old alarm clock any day of the week.

At 10:45 this morning I am headed to another milestone: the glucose test. I am told I will drink a sugary orange liquid and then sit in the doctor's office for 1 hour so they can test me for gestational diabetes. I have been thinking about gaming the test all weekend-- my master plan was to cut out all sugar or fruit the few days before the test. Unfortunately, we were in Colorado for a baby shower and visiting some of our nearest and dearest, and well, well someone offers you cake in honor of your first-born daughter, you just may tend to eat it. Actually, if you are me, you will eat a corner piece and refuse to share with your husband. But, hey, that's just me. And, I also had a piece of cake at lunch on Saturday. In other words, I am only about 72 hours away from a dual cake day so if I pass this test, it will be more miraculous than that A that I got at the University of Chicago in the Technologies of Gender seminar. We'll see.

As mentioned above, Jeff and I attended our first baby shower for Ms. Pepps this weekend, hosted by my lovely and generous college roommate, Alice B.L. The generosity and joy from the weekend is still making me sort of high. We got a close up look at her life with her two precious kids, Andrew (age 4) and Kate (age 2). Her kids are fantastically energetic and creative and happy, and it was hard not to notice that these qualities emerge as early as 6:30 a.m. on a weekend morning. I usually want to punch Oprah when she makes comments, in a manner that sounds vaguely condescending, that being a mom is the hardest job in the world, but after what we saw this weekend, I can definitely attest to my own belief that being a parent is certainly one of the most time consuming and all-encompassing jobs I can think of.

We also learned alot from our friends in Eagle, Colorado: Mimi and Chuck. They too were very generous about what their lives look like with their 2-year-old daughter Lily. Under a backdrop of gorgeous mountain views, Mimi and Chuck demonstrated their own discipline and commitment to parenting their daughter, designing their living space, their vocabulary and their schedules in order to create a warm and loving home for all three of them. It was incredible to behold the work they have put into creating the family life they want.

The bottom line: I am more terrified that ever. And, I think that's good. I would rather understand now that being a parent is a fairly full-time, and full beyond my current comprehension, than find out 2 months into parenting. I am intimidated and afraid about the relentlessness of it all. All weekend long I kept leaning over and telling Jeff that I was "for sure going to work after the baby is born," which was my cutsie way of saying, "I am terrified. There is so much we don't know. Some of this looks incredibly boring to me, so I am hoping to get a tiny break everday when I have to tend to another kind of work that doesn't involve sheparding someone through the world."

And, what do I know? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I know about as much as my daughter knows. We'll be running on instincts for a while, I suppose. We did break out a Dr. Sears book on the plane ride home, which was a very easy to read explanation of attachment parenting. There will be more to say on that, but it will have to be its own post. My relationship to how-to or self-help literature probably says more about me than anything else I have ever posted.

Stay tuned.