Crazy week for the superfriends...

My friend Jay said it best when he posted the following on his Facebook page (I hope he doesn't mind that I am using it):

In the last 24 hours, one of my good friends lost a mother and another good friend became one.

I spent yesterday worrying about work – about press conferences and town halls and what's happening in Congress – but these two amazing women spent their days in hospital rooms facing great pain, great sorrow and great joy.

This morning, a wave of emotion came over me as I read through the string of messages from our group of friends that included the news of both the passing and the birth. These emotions were only compounded by the fact that my friend who lost her mother was also the one who announced the birth.

There is something about our mothers that keep us grounded in reality, and there is something about children that loosen a mother's grasp of reality. When my mom looks at me I know that she still sees me as the baby that she spent a day in the hospital for nearly 30 years ago. She sees the first steps, the first “MaMa” and countless scraped knees and elbows. She sees the first car, the graduation gowns, and the wedding tux. No matter how old I get or how far apart we are, it's humbling and inspiring to know that someone out there sees me that way.

It's the same way I know that my friend Fran will see her new baby, Jude, 30 years from now. It's the same way that my friend Jenny's mom saw her as she held her hand in the hospital yesterday and slipped quietly away.

Waiting for baby...

Well, I had my 38 week check-up today and while things are progressing (I'm dilated to a 4) we don't expect that the baby will come this week. Hopefully next week!! In the meantime, Owen and I are trying to keep busy doing things that don't require me to chase him around. It's raining pretty hard today so we're staying indoors and playing trains, games on the iPhone and whatever else we can find to occupy our time. I hope this week goes by fast! We are very anxious to meet little Elliot!

Quiet time

Craig took Owen to the park so I am enjoying some quiet time. I won't get to do that much in the near future, so I watched some TLC, took a nice, long shower and thought I should take a picture of the belly while it was still here. Here I am at almost 38 weeks.

So, it's been a long while...

I haven't posted anything in a long time and I'm not sure this is the best time to start since we're expecting a new baby very soon but hey, I'll give it a shot anyway.

Owen has grown up a lot since my last post. He's still a talker and it happens quite a bit that people comment on how much he's talking at his age. Since I stay home with him, I'll occasionally notice the difference between his speech and that of another child his age but we really don't have that much interaction with other kids so I can't really tell. It is what it is.

Owen has always been a lover of music and his recent obsession is the drums. He's made up his own set at home from old oatmeal tubs and plastic buckets and uses wooden spoons as drumsticks. Craig and Owen can often be found playing Guitar Hero together and Owen will either drum along to the music or use one of the Guitar Hero guitars and act as if he's playing along. As seen in the photo, he loves to go to Best Buy and use their Rock Band set-up.

We've been prepping Owen for the arrival of his baby brother for some time now. It will be interesting to see how he takes to the new little guy. Owen has had some limited experience around smaller children and babies and he always seems so gentle and caring and he usually tries to share his toys with them. We'll see what happens when he realizes that this new baby that is coming will be STAYING with us full-time. It won't be an easy transition for him but in time, he'll get used to it!