the ax has made it's final fall! while piper has been threatening to sneak out for awhile now, she became very serious about it this week. she made her move. and after 12 hours of contracting at home i went to the dr. where he determined that, indeed she was making a run for it. he gave me drugs and said they work on 1/2 the people, to lie down and hope i was part of that half. and if i wasn't, he'd see me later at the hospital. 24 hours later, it's looking like i'm part of the "it works!" 1/2. keeping my fingers crossed.
the "mandatory bedrest" part is only throwing the tiniest of wrenches into my life of the past month. really the only thing that will be different is that now the dr. agrees with me: funny how bodies tell us what's best looooong before our drs. agree. i've been slowly, and resistantly, winding down over the past month. each day less and less able to "fake-it-till-you make-it". i've heard that that would be a super-nightmare for a super-controlling & independent personality. i'm soooo happy i don't have to deal with that. :)
accepting this new-world to myself was/is disappointing. moreso becauase my initial experience with being pregnant was so unremarkable. yes, i had levi early, but up to the last week or two of being pregnant it was pretty easy. in fact, so impressed was i with the ease of my ability to reproduce i actually said, "if i were 20 i'd do this 10 more times!" i spent real-time fantasizing about what an awesome pioneer woman i would have been. i could have settled the west with 12 buns in the oven. noooooo problem.
so....what's up this time? why has this become so impossible? am i really that much older? have i offended the planets? let levi eat too many treats? not served my fellow man enough? watched too much reality tv? WHAT??
and while it's humiliating to complain about what hundreds of thousands of other women are doing right now, and millions of women have done before, i sacrifice my pride for one reason: so that my daughter will forever understand the only way "we" survived was because of: 1. her grandma and 2. her aunt heidi.
seriously.
i leave my house twice a week to go to my 4-hour dr. appointments. beyond that, my mom and heidi are living the rest of my life for me.
everytime levi hears the garage door going up he puts his hands above his head and cheers, "heiiiiidiiiii!" it's his signal he's being rescued from more handy manny reruns. she takes him to his music class. and to the library. she arranges playdates. they frequent numerous indoor and outdoor parks. she lets him hold his own happy meal and return his own library books. she has a seemingly never-ending supply of sippys full of appropriate liquid refreshment and she mysteriously always has 2 bags of goldfish or 2 yogobites available in her purse. he takes long cozy naps on her bed, and eats dinner at a table at her house. she signs him up for classes and registered him for the easter egg hunt. she comes over in the morning and gets him dressed. he takes baths with gracie at night. he's very happy in the schwarz-foster-care-system.
and when she's not busy raising my son, she's doing my grocery shopping and picking up my medicines. she clips coupons for items that only i would need. she keeps me updated on where baby formula is on sale. she buys me the target sale water AND carries it inside my house. she tells me about places she goes, people she meets up with, conversations they have. she's my connection to the outside world. she brings me frozen yogurt. which bears repeating. she brings me frozen yogurt.
fortunately for heidi, she has a super-hero counterpart: our mom. first thing every morning levi finds my cell phone on the charger and brings it to me saying, "levi calls grandma." he loves talking to grandma. and i can't blame him. when he's with grandma he gets her undivided attention. she has logged in more hours "playing" with levi than any of his friends. she lets him get out big messes and ride a scooter around inside her house. she builds him forts and makes turkey sandwiches with the crusts cut off. she takes him to the airplane park, and runs him up the embankment at the train park at the first sound of an approaching train whistle. she still rocks him to sleep and rocks him again when he wakes up. she lets him "paint" her back porch and sneak one or two of grandpa's golf clubs. she alone rebuilds the tracks on his train table at least twice a week.
in her "free time" she searches the internet for homeopathic cures for all my ailments. she brings me "acid-free" epson salts, and carbonated-goodness. she brings me nourishment and smuggles me little cakes and other delicacies. (sorry M, no muffins so far) she washed and folded all of piper's hand-me-down baby clothes and delivered them in a clean moses basket. she regularly monitors what has now become my "junk room" for items she can eliminate or reorganize. she recruits my husband and my dad to be part of my "weekend staff" of chore-doers. she drives me to my dr. on the super-bad days. she cleans my house before the cleaners come. she sorts, washes, hangs AND puts away my laundry. she even folded my underwear. that's true love.
all of this i watch from my couch in my fabric bag pants and melasma stained cheeks: a hot-mess from head to toe. and while all of these chores-of-love are hard on the pride, i'm increasingly and immensly appreciative. because really, they are SO much better at my life than i am. my life is probably going to be let down when it finds out that i'm back on duty.
over the past 8 years i've encountered the question --WHY?! do you live in las vegas -- numerous times. i've endured peer pressure from friends to live somewhere "prettier" or "greener" or somewhere with more "culture" and "architecture". so amazed are they that with all the choices i've had, or could have had, why i made this one. i've tried and tried to explain it -- to really articulate why i want to be here. why i HAVE to be here. and if this experience and my explanation of it doesn't resonate, then nothing will.
i'll give up a lifetime of green trees & beechy-breezes to be the blessed recipient i am now. and to be close enough to repay the debt when the time comes.
