I devoted many hours to pondering the miracle of life, and these gems are the result. You’re welcome in advance.
1. I just finished lunch, which means it sounds like the right time for a snack. In case you’re wondering, bananas and peanut butter make the best snack in the world.
2. Twelve hours of sleep in a day is not excessive. Doing dishes and vacuuming are forms of cruel and unusual punishment. (Can I file a lawsuit against Adulthood, or Homeownership, or anything like that?) I’m growing a whole nother person right now, isn’t that enough?
3. I’ve had one experience of being pretty sure I felt the baby move, and MANY experiences of thinking, “Well, that was either gas or the baby, but who the heck knows.”
4. Do all cats prefer climbing on pregnant bellies, or is that an idiosyncrasy of mine? Months ago, they would curl up next to me, easy as pie. Now, they walk right up the mountain of my stomach and lie down like it’s a custom-made bed.
5. Apples and cheese make the best snack in the world.
6. Cinnamon raisin toast and cream cheese make the best snack in the world.
7. Although I have an ultrasound scheduled in a couple weeks, we are not finding out the sex of the baby. Matt really wants the big surprise moment at birth. I would be fine with knowing ahead of time, but am also–as it turns out, to my great surprise–fine with not knowing. Instead of trying to figure why it is that I don’t care very much either way, I’m just rolling with it. Puzzling the reason out would probably require a nap afterwards, anyway, and I don’t have time for that this afternoon.
8. If you’re going to go to the beach in Florida right after the holiday season, do it while pregnant. While everyone else laments the Thanksgiving stuffing and Christmas cookies in which they’ve recently indulged, and their foods’ effects on bathing-suit-readiness, I simply get to say, “Baby’s gotta eat!” and then have another snack.
9. It’s easy to focus on the day-to-day experiences of pregnancy–thinking about whether I feel tired, if that smell nauseates me, when my next doctor’s appointment is, or how much of my belly is made of Chipotle burritos and how much is baby. Sometimes it’s good to remind myself to think about the bigger picture, about how new life has been created, about how Baby Carney already has a complete genetic code and perhaps a propensity to like art or soccer or hiking later in life, not to mention fingers and toes and working ears. About the mystery of life, and the miracle of all Creation, and the miracle of this specific creation. About how this baby is currently entrusted to my care in a physical way, and will soon be entrusted to my care in a physical, emotional, and spiritual way, and how I want to address his or her needs. And then it’s easy to get bogged down in daily routines again–planning to make healthy lunches and and give lots of praise but also provide challenges, and go to the library and go to church and go to sports practices–but that’s life, and it’s fine. Life is lived on a day-to-day basis, in day-to-day activities. Still, it’s good to remember the bigger goals, that our first purpose is to craft ourselves and our families to be the kind of people who get into Heaven someday.
10. I have to go now. It’s time for a snack.
P.S. We’re about to leave for Miami to watch Notre Dame play in the National Championship game. I can’t sign off without saying: Go Irish, beat Crimson Tide!
