The calm before the storm

Everything is strangely normal at our house considering everything is about to change in just 19 short days from now. And no, I'm not just referring to the election, although election day just happens to be my due date. Everything seems relatively normal, but there's an electricity in the air, an anticipation that makes the mundane seem more poignant. As I give the kids a bath at night I think, these are the last nights I'm only going to have to bathe two kids. As we struggle to go down three flights of stairs and head off fifteen minutes late to wherever we were supposed to be fifteen minutes ago, I think, these are the last few times I will only have to haul two kids down three flights of stairs and strap them into car seats. Pretty soon I will be nursing a baby while Emma and Charlie do their art work all over the kitchen floor and I will be rendered essentially powerless if they decide to start painting their toenails with watercolors or building a robot out of my colanders.

I realize intellectually that I have it pretty easy right now as I can do things like head upstairs to take a shower whenever the mood strikes me and not worry about leaving the kids unattended for a few minutes. I have a few afternoons off during the week while they are both at preschool and I am a giantly pregnant lady of leisure, free to waddle the aisles of Babies 'r Us and Target all by myself. Or sometimes during their preschool hours I will put on my hypnobirthing CDs and catch a few hypno-induced zzzz's (I have yet to make it through an entire CD without falling asleep).

Life is good right now and I have it pretty easy. I realize this, but I still can't stand the waiting any longer. I am just dying to meet this new baby and have him come join our little foursome, making everything wonderfully chaotic and complicated. I know that he will only be about 20 inches long, won't be able to see more than a few feet in front of his face, will likely sleep a good portion of the time and eat the rest of the time, but I have been preparing our home as though we were expecting Martha Stewart or Prince Charles to drop in for a visit any second. Just in case the new babe decides to go rifling through my closet, he will find that I have dedicated certain areas for all my craft stuff, my yarn carefully wound and organized by color, my scrapbook stickers, paper, and pictures lovingly appointed. I have organized my pantry for him, cleaned out everyone's closets and the garage. I have gone to Costco to buy a forest's worth of paper towels and toilet paper, shampoo by the gallons, tomato sauce and coffee by the crate. It's like I'm preparing for some kind of permanent house guest who just happens to be staying with us during Y2K or a hurricane.

When I'm not obsessively nesting, I've been trying to pass the time by doing some projects (or "projecks" as Emma would call them) that help me keep my mind off of the whole having a baby thing. Here's what I've been up to lately:

Planning, sketching, discussing and designing Halloween costumes. Halloween and the potential craftiness that it can inspire has been a great distraction to me and the kids. We have been discussing their Halloween costumes for about the past two weeks and we're just now getting around to the business of actually making them. Here is our sketch of Emma's Supergirl costume:


This was the first of many Halloween costume ideas she has come up with. She changes her mind daily though. Most recently she has decided she wanted to be a spider-witch. There was also a point in time where she wanted to be a star, for me to be Earth, Brandon to be Saturn and Charlie to be a rocket. I think I would make a great planet, so I was all excited about this idea, but, alas, she has moved on to other ideas. Last night she said she just wanted to be a princess. Whatever. I've relinquished any control over her and her Halloween ideas.

Charlie is much more decisive and focused in his interests. At first he wanted to be Wall-e. Here is our Wall-e costume sketch:


I think in theory this would be a really cute costume for Charlie. I like that he's into nerdy stuff like environmentally conscious robots and I want to support that interest, but I know Charlie. There is no way he's wearing a spray-painted box for more than like two seconds. He is all about robots, but he is also all about comfort and so Wall-e is just not in the cards I think. Luckily, he decided on his own that he wanted to be a "3-2-1 blast-off rocket" instead and I think that sounds like a much more wearable costume (at least the way I'm designing it). So here is the "3-2-1 blast-off rocket" so far....



It's a work in progress, but I think it will be cute. I just have to figure out a way to make the pointy top part of the rocket in such a way that is comfy, yet pointy and rocket-like. I'm thinking I'll make some sort of cone hat out of black felt and somehow affix it to a hat or hooded sweatshirt? I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any.

Emma just informed me that she decided she wants to be Supergirl now. Looks like it's time to figure out a way to make a yellow sequin-sparkle mask and track down some purple tights. I better run. I hope the baby is born soon, but not too soon. There's lots of important work still to be done!