That hurts...

I was sitting here yesterday, catching up on reading blogs. I was almost done and Stephen was sitting on the bed behind me. I turned around to talk to him, then turned back to the computer. Just as I turned back, Stephen fell off the bed. He landed flat on his stomach (and the side of his face) and just laid there for a second. He started to cry so I scooped him up and held him for a minute. He calmly and quietly slid off my lap and started to walk out of the room. I asked him where he was going and he said he wanted to lay in his bed. I finished up reading the blog I was reading and went in to check on him. I crawled into his bed next to him and asked if he was okay and he told me that his head hurt. I told him that I bet it did after falling like that. He looked at me with this puppy dog look and those big green eyes and said, "You were supposed to catch me."

Ouch.

Thursday Thirteen

13 Things I'm Looking Forward to After the Baby is Born

I have exactly 6 weeks until we meet our littlest Sweet Boy. I can't wait to meet him. I can't wait to touch him, smell him, stroke his hair. So here's a list of some of the things I'm looking forward to.

1. Donuts!! Ok, some of the things I'm looking forward to aren't deep. You have no idea what I would give for some Dunkin' Donuts (KEP, ksl....it's your fault!).

2. Introducing Stephen to the baby...seeing him hold him and kiss him. He's just so stinkin' excited. He talks to the baby everyday and kisses him goodnight and good morning. He keeps close tabs on my growth and reminds me periodically how big I'm getting. While loving on my belly one day, he stroked it and softly said, "Big fat tummy."

3. Seeing if the baby has hair. For some reason this has always been the first thing on my mind after the birth of our children. The first thing out of my mouth when Stephen was born wasn't "Is he okay?" "How big is he?", etc....it was "Does he have hair?" I had no idea I was so concerned with that until his birth!

4. Seeing Sweet Hubby with our third child. He's just so sweet with our babies. I love watching him with them.

5. Being able to roll over in bed without a huge production.

6. Being able to get up without a huge production.

7. Being able to walk without a huge production.

8. Not having to prick my fingers everyday.

9. Not having to think through every morsel of food I put in my mouth.

10. Being able to cuddle and hold close my two older boys...the belly is just crampin' my style these days. I have no lap for them to crawl up and cuddle in.

11. Nursing another baby....it's easy to forget how special it is to snuggle up with a newborn to nurse. To doze off only to wake up to find that the baby has happily dozed off, too. To see that little milk-drunk look on his face and that little bit of milk-drool at the corner of his mouth. *sigh*

12. Frappucinos.

13. Being the mom of 3 boys. THREE BOYS! Three beautiful boys. How cool is that? If you had asked me 5 years ago what I thought of having 3 boys, I would have said that I could not have boys....I wouldn't know what to do with them and boys have cooties. God knows me better than I know myself. What would my life be without these sweet, dirty, smelly, wild little boys?

Don't let the screen door hit you on the butt...

Stephen's had it. He's moving out.

Or so he says.

While I was making breakfast one morning last week, Stephen came in and asked if they could have breakfast in the living room (something their daddy lets them do when he's home). I told him no (I probably could have been a bit nicer in the way I answered...I was in a foul mood that morning). He huffed and puffed a bit and came back in....

"MOM! I am moving OUT!"

"Really? Where do you think you're going to go?"

"Nonny and Poppy's." (My in-laws)

"Do you think they'll treat you better than we do?"

"Yes."

"I'm sure they would."

And we left it at that. I would have helped him pack his bag, but I guess he decided he liked it well enough here to stay. He hasn't brought it up since.

I remember

Check out Rocks in My Dryer for more rememberances.

I guess I was lucky that day. I was in a little "bubble" that was the baby room at the day school I worked at. We had no access to TV or radio. Just a bunch of baby and lullaby CDs. I played with and loved on those babies ("my" babies) that morning just like any other. I didn't watch all the horror that was to come that day as it unfolded.

It wasn't until a mom came in late to drop off her daughter and said that two planes had hit the World Trade Centers. At that point, that was all she knew. None of us had any idea what that meant. Was it a freak accident? Was something wrong with these planes or air traffic control? It was just so weird.

A little bit later, someone came in and told us the rest. The towers fell...the pentagon on fire....a plane in a field. What was happening? I needed to get in front of a TV. And I needed to talk to Sweet Hubby. I was worried because we lived in a town with a major college. What if colleges were next? But I was a bit thankful that Sweet Hubby worked where he did because he was in and out of all sorts of small towns all day long. I tried to feel safe and secure.

And I hugged those babies. Oh, how I hugged those babies. The day was just like any other for them...they ate, they laughed, they slept, they played. They trusted us to keep them safe. They couldn't have any idea. I just wanted to wrap them all up in bundles and go hide somewhere until their mamas could come and hug them and protect them.

Then I went home. I listened to the local country station on the way home. It was no longer playing any music. It was just a constant feed from a news station. I kept thinking that this had to be some kind of awful nightmare or prank. This couldn't really be happening. Then for the first time that day, sometime around 3pm, I sat in front of a TV. It was all so sickeningly real. I couldn't even wrap my mind around it.

The rest is a blur. I don't remember Sweet Hubby coming home or eating dinner. I do remember Sweet Hubby coming to get me at some point in the middle of the night telling me to turn the TV off and come to bed. I couldn't pull myself away from it. Like a bad car accident, as they say.

One year later, I sat in church praying. For the victims, for their families, for the government, for the safety of everyone else, and for my unborn child. I rubbed my belly and thought of our baby that would be born in 4 more months and I wondered how in the world was I going to protect him from the kind of atrocities that happened just a year before? How would I explain that to him when he got to be 5, 6, 10 and we were honoring the anniversary of the attacks? Thankfully, he's not quite 4 today. He's still in a world where the worst that can happen is a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. And he still thinks that Dad is a hero that can fix anything. One day I hope to do justice to the truths of 9/11 for my children. About the horror that some people can bring on their fellow man. About the hope of a nation coming together...not shaken at the scariest time in our generation. About how for every zealot that is willing to fly a plane into a building, there is another person praying, giving blood, sending supplies, donating money, walking in to fiery and falling buildings to save one more life. That there is hope beyond trials. And that we can't ever forget. We can't let it become a line in a history textbook. If we forget and move past 9/11/01 then we forget what we are really capable of. We forget about true hope and heroism. We forget about what it means to be one nation under God.

We just can't forget.

So I remember.