oh, the peace

shockingly, i am a delinquent blogger. i love the idea of a blog - because i love words, i love being able to read my own words from different times in my life (i frequently waste the hour after children's bedtime rereading old journals), and because i am a much faster typer than i am a writer. although, of course, ink on paper does create a certain beauty that a little old keyboard will never approach.

but i'm going to try to get back into the blogging sphere. even if i'm my blog's only reader, that will be fine. its the writing and the recording, not so much the communicating with the outside world.

i have seven more weeks until this baby number three is due. i find myself very emotional about my current little people - and the havock that this baby is about to wreak in their worlds.

this pregnancy has been so different from ada brooks's and eason's. obviously, all pregnancies are different, but i find myself categorizing their in-womb-eras in the same category and this little person's in a completely different one.

one big difference, i think, is our lack of gender knowledge. there have been some moments when i've wished to know, but all in all, i have loved this suspense. and its almost the opposite of suspense - it has actually created more peace and patience than i ever experienced with the other two. or perhaps lack of gender knowledge is not related to that peace at all. perhaps, and more likely, that peace comes from a much surer sense of self - of who i am as woman, wife, mother.

we call him or her "bot-wuh". fairly early in the pregnancy, ada brooks turned the phrase "baby on the way" into a proper noun - as in "Baby-On-The-Way" - example of usage, "Well, do you think Baby-On-The-Way will be old enough to come with us when we go to Europe one day" (of course, i don't have it in me to say that not only will her younger sibling be old enough, but i might be too old by the time we have the time and money to go to Europe as a family).

but BabyOnTheWay began to be written, as things around here often are, and we of course wrote it BOTW - which Paul began pronouncing bot-wuh - you know - BOT followed by the sound you tell a child the letter W makes -

So, botwuh is bopping around in my belly. for at least seven more weeks (or for this mama who has come to expect late babies, it seems like it will be at least seven more weeks - knowing God though, he or she will make an early appearance). and i am loving life - and the peace that Christ really is faithful to allow - and even force - on a little family living in such unsure times. a little family - whose oldest child is awake even at this late hour of 8:37 pm - awake and singing to herself in her new loft bed. whose younger child better be sleeping soundly despite the concert directly above his head. whose daddy is at work. and whose mama is loving this moment of silence.