Our Last Weekend

Watering the trees while still in our jammies

Two weeks ago Sam and I left Jamie's Play Palace at 4:30pm on Friday and we entered into perhaps the longest, most challenging weekend of my life. Combine the physical exhaustion and heartburn and insomnia of late stage pregnancy with a defiant 2 and 1/2 year old who is used to a Mommy that runs and wrestles and climbs with him, and you're asking for trouble.

Thank God this past weekend, our last weekend alone, was completely different. It's not that the exhaustion is gone or that I am suddenly finding a way to quiet my bladder (or my mind) to get more sleep at night. But I entered this past weekend knowing that this was it, our last full weekend alone with just the two of us. I took lots of deep breaths and let the dishes pile up and didn't spend any time on the To-Do-Before-Baby List.

We created blanket forts in the living room. We built a Sammy Sam Clubhouse that rivals Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse. (Secret password to enter is "popsicle.") We made cookies. We made cake. We ran around the yard looking for holes left by the family of ground squirrels that pop their heads up when we're watching from the dining room table. We played with diggers in the sandbox. We picked flowers. We chased ladybugs. We killed bees and then studied their yellow legs and yellow eyes. ("Where his eyes, Mommy? Where his eyes?") We filled buckets with water and made pools and sand sculptures in the sandbox. We watched movies and ate popcorn ("Can we make MORE popcorn, Mommy?"). We wrestled and tickled in my bed in the morning, playing our little game where our hands are spiders that can talk to each other. Sam's little hands crawl up my leg or along my arm and he lifts a few of the fingers and says "Hi. What you doing?" or "Can your spider come play with my spider?" We blew big bubbles on the back porch, and every fifteen minutes we raced out to move the hose soaking the rootballs of the new trees we had planted last week. ("I beat you again, Mommy.") We inhaled fresh buttery acorn squash that Sammy says "tastes like candy." We talked about Baby Sister coming and how TT is going to take him to the hospital. I asked him what we should name Baby Sister and he said "Baby Sister. Her name Baby Sister." I asked him if we should name her Eva or Theresa. "No!!!!!! Her name Baby Sister!" We sat in the rocking chair at the end of the night and talked about our days and counted the days until TT will be here and the days until Auntie Ann will be here ("When Sarah's mommy here, Mommy?") and the days until Baby Sister will be here. And we both said I love you spontaneously a hundred million times. It's hard to imagine loving another child as much as I love this little man who has completely transformed my life (and my heart), and I know that these moments alone together are going to be so rare starting next week. But I feel so incredibly grateful for this life and this past weekend and the moments we've had together that I will treasure forever.