Of Babies and Men

It happened just the way I said it would.

The house was a mess, there were dirty dishes in the sink, and my toe nails weren’t painted.

At least my legs were shaved.

We ran out the door on Mother’s Day to go the hospital where, to our surprise, our son Wade was born almost 5 weeks early.

When we got home from the hospital with Wade the house was cleaned up thanks to my mom and mother-in-law. But Wade’s room was unpainted and uncarpeted. Boxes of stuff still waiting to be moved to the basement littered his floor. The crib leaned against the wall in pieces.

And for the most part it’s still like that.

Most of our baby essentials remain tucked away in boxes in attic. Dave spent the afternoon before we came home from the hospital digging around up there looking for the infant car seat. After we got home he went up again for clothes, blankets and bottles. There’s a lot more yet to bring down.

Thank goodness my mother-in-law brought a bassinet over the day before Wade was born or he would be sleeping in a drawer.

We went straight to the store from the hospital to buy formula, diapers, wipes, and preemie size clothes. I swiped just enough of those sample bottles of formula and diapers from the hospital to get us through until we got home. I forgot to grab wipes, and when Wade needed his diaper changed at the store I cleaned him off with some Puffs Plus with Lotion that were in my purse. (Oddly, they worked really well.)

We tried for weeks to get the nursery set up and the house ready to welcome Wade home. We really only had time to do it on the weekends. And three weeks ago when we set aside the whole weekend to work on it, I came down with the stomach flu. That left me on the couch and Dave keeping our four year old son David occupied all weekend. Then the next weekend I ended up with a terrible cold. We thought we still had another month and planned to work on it again last weekend until I went into labor.

This isn’t how it was all supposed to go.

Since this was our second baby I imagined everything going smoothly. The scheduled C-section would go as planned on June 4th. My mom would be finished teaching school for the summer, and she’d be there to help and watch David while I rested. We would bring Wade home to a nicely decorated room. I’d even planned one last big hurrah for David with just Mommie and Daddie before Wade came.

So things are a little chaotic around here. And it’s driving me crazy. I can’t stand it when things are disorganized, messy and undone. But it’s a little overwhelming, and I find myself just looking at everything not knowing where to start.

Today we decided to not worry about it, and headed to the zoo for a Family Day. I missed my other two guys after all that time in the hospital, and just wanted to spend time with them, not thinking about all there is to do. It was fun to go out all together for the first time today.

I’m thrilled Wade is here. And so happy that he’s healthy. Honestly I’m glad to have it over with. I don’t really like being pregnant, and didn’t feel very well through out most of it. I feel so much better than I did a few weeks ago despite the huge incision across my middle and being tired. I think I get pre-partum depression instead of post.

Tomorrow Dave will head back up to attic, and maybe we’ll finally find everything else. And after a day of relaxing and having fun I think I will be able to deal with the mess tomorrow.

Oh, well. You know what they say. The Best Laid Plans, right? (Heavy Sigh.)