The other day I was paying at the grocery store and the checkout girl asked me when I'm due. I must have looked bewildered or perplexed because she quickly followed with "Oh my gosh you are pregnant right?! I'm so sorry!" I immediately put her at ease and told her that I was in fact pregnant but that the honest truth was that all too often I do forget that fact. In between the difficult spring we had, the move and running around after a very, very active toddler (God bless her wild little heart) I don't really have time to bask in the glory of this pregnancy.
I remember with Birdie I would make elaborate to do lists, I would fold and refold all her tiny clothes, I would spend hours on Pinterest finding the perfect little shoe or lamp or print to frame. I took naps and made myself wonderful meals. This time? Well I'm embarrassed to say but there's been a lot of fast food, not a whole lot of Pinterest and no naps. And I feel so guilty about it. I feel like already I'm not giving this baby boy what he deserves. But I try my best and I take what I can get, like mornings.
Mornings are "our" time. At some point into the second trimester I started waking up well before everyone else in the house. I would lay on my back and put my hand on my belly waiting to feel him move. And every morning when I would feel that first kick of the day my heart would flutter. No matter how many times it happens over the course of the day that first time is always special. I like to think it's his way of saying "good morning mama." I spend those few precious moments of quiet thinking about him, loving on him and telling him just how special he already is to us. I vow to do better today than I did yesterday and a feeling of gratitude overwhelms me. Gratitude for the chance to grow a life within me one more time and gratitude for being gifted one more heart to treasure and love.
Inevitably this moment will at some point be interrupted by Birdie's happy howls or Belle asking to go out and the day will begin. There will be breakfast and piles of laundry and work and nap schedules and errands to be ran. My back will ache and the many trips up the stairs, sometimes with a toddler in tow, will leave me winded. I'll eat and take my prenatal vitamins and I'll maybe give myself a moment on the sofa with a glass of water here and there but other than that it will be the mad rush of life. Until the next morning...

I needed a few minutes to dust off the cobwebs from this sad little neglected space before I sat down to write today. I didn't have any intentions of going this long without posting but I suppose I forgot just how crazy moving can be. The boxes, the travel, the odds and ends, the seemingly never ending list of projects. It's all I can do these days to keep my head above water. And with this little boy coming in two months I'm really a ball of nerves as we try to get this house/new life ready.
So here I am today, in a new room but at my old desk that has followed me from California to Virginia and now Georgia. My view is no longer of our beloved woods but of a row of homes. It's hard to believe sometimes that the cabin is now in the past. When I occasionally scroll through photos on my phone and come across a few from our life back in the Valley it strikes me just how unique life was there. Now this is by no means a way of saying that I'm just moping around missing the cabin because trust me we are LOVING it here. The cabin had it's charms and it will always hold a special place in our hearts but for someone who is about to become a mother of two and works from home the conveniences of life here are a welcome relief.
When we left the cabin over two weeks ago we were in such a rush. Papa bear and his brother wanted to get on the road as soon as possible as they were driving our belongings down and the rest of us were just dog tired. Moving while six months pregnant with a toddler is quite the adventure let me tell you. So that night instead of heading to Maryland where I would be staying for a few days before joining papa bear in Georgia Birdie and I stayed at a hotel. The next morning I felt a strong desire to pay the cabin one last visit before I leave. Our car grunted up the familiar dirt road and I turned into our driveway. Birdie fumbled up the stairs to the deck and I unlocked the door and walked in. And it hit me, the first pang. It wasn't home anymore. Our things were gone, our smells were gone, our life there was... gone. Poor Birdie ran around the house confused. She got especially frustrated when she got to her room. I sat down on the floor with her and tried to explain all these changes to her while flipping through photos of our new house on my phone. When there wasn't much else left to do I took one last look out of the kitchen window where I spent so many hours washing dishes, washing my baby or just daydreaming. To my surprise there was a gigantic luna moth sitting right on the window. In all our three years of living there we had never seen one. I couldn't help but shake the feeling that it was some sort of sign.
Finally, I strapped Birdie into her carseat and headed back down the mountain. She was asleep within minutes and that's when I let it go. I silently ugly cried for a solid hour as I made my way through the winding country roads past fields and farms and forests. I cried for everything the cabin meant to us. I cried for the beautiful life we built there. I cried for the good times and the bad times and I cried because of all the unknown. But mostly I cried because I was happy. Happy and grateful for this crazy life we live, for the experiences we've had and will continue to have and happy for our family.
Life is so unpredictable, absent of any guarantees. We wake up each day vowing to do our best and hoping for the best. Some days are hard, some days are bad and some days are just amazing. But when it's all said and done I think it all ends up in the good column sooner or later because even the hard or the bad was a lesson we would never regret. And so we adventure on, fearlessly, stronger today than we were yesterday.