Baby Days Ahead

It's becoming obvious that Baby Sam will soon be making his arrival at our house. A new chest of drawers has made its way into...where else...our dining room. It is slowly being filled with slightly-stained baby clothes that have belonged to two Bond Boys before this one. A baby car seat is waiting in our basement and there is at least one pack of those unbelievably tiny newborn diapers in the top of a closet somewhere. Hopefully a bassinet will arrive soon. Really, what else do you need for baby #4?

This baby's sweet brother, Luke, is doing his part to make sure that we are quite used to the lack of sleep for mommy and the general crankiness of the next-to-the-youngest child that will probably ensue when Sam is added to our family. Let's see...the kids have been back in school for eight days today, and Jack began getting sick last week. Public school, aka, a Cesspool of Germs. Since we are so successful at teaching our kids to share, Jack was very generous with his germs and allowed Luke to have a few for himself. As all Bond boys seem to do, they've been wheezing up a storm. When Luke is sick, he DOES NOT SLEEP. Now, his health cannot be blamed for the early hours he's decided to wake up the two weeks prior to yesterday. The earliest morning was Friday at 4:45. Yes. 4:45. Chris and I both tried to explain to him that it was completely unacceptable and we would not stand for it, but that did not seem to alter his chipper mood in the least. He was ready to start his day. There are just so many important things for him to do, you know.

I thought that was bad until last night when he arrived at my bedside at 1:45am (after I'd gone to sleep at midnight) and proceeded to spend the rest of the night/wee hours of the morning wheezing, asking for drinks, climbing all over me, and requesting cereal with milk. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but I'm not the nicest person between the hours of midnight and 6am. I'm really not ever a super-nice person, but those hours are especially challenging for me. I appreciate Luke doing his part to prepare our household for Sam. I just hope and pray that once Sam arrives and takes over the wake-mommy-up-at-all-hours-of-the-night duty that Luke will feel that his job is done and be content to pass the baton. Because, heaven knows, if I get a newborn to sleep and then a cute (but not that cute) two-year-old decides to pay me a visit at 2am, we might be back down to three kids.

I am looking forward to that fuzzy newborn head and that silky soft skin and those scrunched up, skinny little legs and the fingers and toes that are so tiny that you just swear your other kids' could never have been that small. Oh, and the smell...that amazing baby smell that kids over the age of 18 months just can't seem to pull off, no matter how much Johnson's baby bath and lotion you smear on them. There are definitely wonderful moments that make the lack of sleep worth it...obviously, since we're doing this for a fourth time. That's what's great about the third and fourth times around. You've done it enough times before to know that you'll forget most of the hard stuff and cherish those precious things about this season with your children. Well, I will never forget the emotional breakdown on Luke's first Easter morning that ended with only 3/5 of our family headed to church. But we won't talk about that now...

I know this is all very riveting, but this is as exciting as it gets when you've been home for about 10 days, with your main goals being to stay awake during the daylight hours and not be seriously injured by an avalanche of laundry and ironing. And I'm saving the truly enthralling potty-training update for another day. Let's just say, when, or if, Luke ever figures out how to actually urinate in the potty at least one time, there will be some major celebration going on by one excited mama. Have I ever mentioned how cute he is?