David's mom arrives tonight and my mom arrives on Friday night to help out with baby stuff, kid stuff, moving stuff, and hopefully have time for some pleasant visiting on top of all that :).
I had to drive up to Columbia today with the boys to pick up the lease so we can sign it and make things official with our new home, and it hit me kind of hard all day today that this was going to be the "end of the Campbell status quo as we know it". Not that the past 2 years have been exactly "status quo" for us, because they've actually been pretty crazy with all the relocating and everything. But we started out 2 years ago in David's rotation program as a family of 5. We've traveled together and bonded together amidst our adventures and misadventures in Buffalo, Colorado Springs, and 2 Virginia locations as 2 adults and 3 kids. One major constant for the past 2 years has been our little nuclear family, and now we're about to totally change the dynamics of that constant. And now Help is on its way for the imminent baby delivery, which just makes it all the more real that everything is going to change.
We will be a family of 6, and we'll have a newborn in tow with all the feeding, changing, and sleeping demands that newborns come with. I'm not really worried about things being worse than they are now (although I know the first few months will be more difficult as we all adjust and are sleep-deprived). It's more like I'm already starting to miss the routines and normalcy that we've grown comfortable with. I can take the 3 boys out on big or little errands by myself (which I remember seemed SO daunting when Peter was tiny!), and I feel confident that they will behave well, and if they don't, I can handle it. I think right now I feel the most confident and calm in my mothering and teaching career than I ever have, and I'll miss that feeling! I know I'll get it back eventually, and of course our family will adapt just fine and it will be hardly any time at all before we feel like our family was never complete without baby David. But, still, it was an odd and slightly bittersweet feeling today that there is no turning back from this point.
That being said, I wonder when baby David will make his arrival! No feelings yet that things are getting close. It's a huge relief that we have family arriving in town that can wrangle the bigger boys while David and I go to the hospital. We had some friends from church offer to help out, but I know the boys will be much more comfortable if they can just be at home instead of being juggled between various people's houses. Plus, I worry a bit about making sure everyone is up to speed on Jack's nut allergy and someone doesn't accidentally forget about it. I felt terrible a couple of weeks ago when we got sandwiches from a sandwich shop, and the boys had little bags of potato chips, and I noticed *after* Jack had eaten a good handful of them that they were cooked in peanut oil! He was fine, no reactions (I've actually heard that peanut oil is usually refined to the point that peanut proteins are filtered out), but it bothered me that it escaped my radar when I'm supposed to be most on top of it!
We will keep you updated when anything interesting happens. In the meantime, we appreciate your prayers for healthy and safe delivery and a good adjustment for all of us.
1 comment:
Great post, Kathy! I have been thinking about you a lot lately (and have been meaning to email or call). I am definitely praying for you all, as always, and I am so excited for your family and Baby Davy's impending (hopefully soon!) arrival. My family recognized that you are an exceptional mother when you guys came over last month. I hope I cam see you again soon (when the dust settles, of course). Love you!
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