Balancing Act

So I'm waiting on a baby.

I'm feeling upbeat, nesting, getting a lot of things done. I'm back at work, but much refreshed. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! The days are long; I miss my naps. But I'm hanging in. I'm finishing projects, sending important emails and trying not to bust my ass on the newly waxed hallway floors. It's all good.

And I'm balancing. I'm balancing the urge to see this baby soon with letting this baby mature and gestate as long as possible. I'm trying to both spend extra one-on-one time with each of my three kids while enjoying any alone time I can find, knowing it will soon be more scarce than it already is. I'm balancing the urge to nest feverishly with the knowledge that it might just be better to relax and know that things will fall into place as needed.

I'm amazed by how peaceful I can still feel while knowing what's ahead. I'm no spring chicken mother. I know this is going to be tough, especially since big brother Colby will be only 20 months old.

I know, from experience, that I'll be rather tied to an adorable, but demanding, nursing newborn, that I'll sit on the couch nursing for hours on end looking at the mess that is my living room and wanting, craving, desperately seeking ten solitary minutes to run around the place, monkey-do-style, to clean it up. I'll yearn for my Kenmore, for a stunt double to keep the house the way I want to keep it.

I'll be up all hours of the night, so tired at times that it won't be funny at all, that I won't even be able to do it justice in a story to my sister on the cell phone on her way to work the next day. I'll be pouchy and leaky and will have numerous physical oddities occurring all over the map of my body.

I'll hate my husband. I'll resent the fact that the buck stops here, that I am the end-all, be-all. I will look at his sleeping figure during the third feeding of the night, and I'll want to kick him. I'll feel the horns growing from my forehead. And then I'll wake up the next morning and forget all about it. He'll turn back into my lifeline: the half of me that goes out of the house for normal life, the one who picks up the dark chocolate or the Teddy Grahams or the coffee creamer that helps me carry on. He'll melt my heart as I watch him melt the first time the baby smiles at him. He'll be the one who goes through the experience with me, as much as anyone can anyway.

I'll struggle through some days and soar through others. Caring for a newborn in addition to my three other children will likely be one of the hardest physical challenges I'll ever live through. And I will live through it.

I'll take the amazing, heartwarming moments motherhood will bring whenever they present themselves. I'll tuck them into the folds of my heart. I'll savor the funny things the kids say, cherish the times when four little heads lean together in affection, squirrel away the memories for the sunset of my life. I'll resolve to hold fast to the moments that take my breath away.

And it will be awesome...

So, baby, I'm waiting. I'm growing and thinking and enjoying. I'm prepared to take the balancing act that is my motherhood to the next level. Take your time in there, and know that your momma will be ready when you are.

It's going to be epic.