Final Countdown

I have entered the stage where I can say, "A month from now there will be a new baby in the house!" While this is a great relief physically, it sometimes drains me to think of little Rowena not being "The baby" anymore. She's so darn cute and sweet and chubby and cuddly. I don't like to think of her as being replaced.

Yet I know that this thinking is faulty. I've been through it before. It was hardest when I was about to have Gianna because I had no experience with having another child to love.

This baby will not have hours of sitting idly on my lap like Stella, but he will have three adoring sisters. Rowena couldn't get enough of a friend's baby on Saturday. She kept wanting to hold him and pat him and kiss him. Naturally, the baby became a little annoyed after a bit. We'll be doing some major defensive work here for a while.

Someone asked me if I was excited to have a boy. As is my nature, I was honest and informed them that I'm never really excited until the baby arrives. They said, "How exciting can it be the fourth time around anyway, right?"

That's not exactly the sentiment that I was trying to convey. In fact, knowing how quickly babyhood passes and how very sweet babies are makes each baby added to the family more valued than the baby before. Notice I'm talking about babies, not individual persons. Of course, they're all valued, but the babies become more valuable. There is more confidence on our part as parents and more knowledge of the fleeting nature of this stage.

Stella will be five shortly after this baby is born. It blows my mind to think about how quickly it's all passed. It is with that knowledge that I look forward to meeting this next child and doing my very best to remember what a pleasure it is to have a newborn. This will be no simple task when I am sleep deprived. That will be when God's grace is most necessary. He will need to fill in all the blanks for me on all the fronts that I will fail during our next babymoon.