Memories

In honor of my baby boy’s 4^th birthday coming up, I thought I’d share two funny memories I’ve recently been reminded of that happened during my pregnancy with him. I’m very bad at journaling, so I never wrote them anywhere...until now. 

The first story I was reminded of because we are in the process of remodeling our basement right now. This has been a long process because we only work on it when we have the time and the money. As it usually works out, when we have the time, we never have the money and vice versa. We are finally to the point where things are coming together. We’ve knocked out walls, built new rooms, redone the entire house’s plumbing and electrical. We’ve hung the sheetrock, and now we are to the point of mudding. We hired this out (because neither Shawn nor I have the skill and patience for mudding) and we refer to Mike as our Mudder. Every time we are talking to anyone else about our “mudder”, they interpret as our “mother” which is completely understandable.

Now let me paint the scene from 4+ years ago. We were remodeling our upstairs bathroom and were to the point of rebuilding. Most of the sheetrock was done, and we were shopping at home depot for some more sheetrock and the sheetrock mud and tape. I was into my third trimester and was starting to have feeling of doubt and inadequacy about being a mother. My due date was quickly approaching, I was a full-time student with a full-time job, and we hadn’t had much time to really let the fact that we were going to be parents soon “sink in”. So there we are, in the checkout lane and there were issues with the person in front of us so we were waiting for a long time. As we were waiting, a cute young family walked in. They had a little boy who was around 18 months old and you could tell that the mother was expecting again. They came in all smiley, the dad and the boy were playfully interacting. This family was “it”. They didn’t have a care in the world, and were completely engrossed in one another.

My thoughts immediately started running wild about our new little family. Would we be like that, was I going to be able to be the same kind of mother I grew up to love and cherish? As I’m thinking about that, Shawn leans over and says, “I sure hope you’re a good mudder”. Now, even though these were the same thoughts I had just been having, I was totally taken back when they came out of his mouth. I was furious! I started to get a little misty-eyed thinking that even my own husband, who was in this with me, doubted my abilities. I just stood there, trying to keep the tears in, thinking, “How in the world am I supposed to respond to that?” Shawn had apparently noticed that something wasn’t quite right because he looked at me, pointed at the cart full of sheetrock mud, and said, “You know, a mudder”. I immediately felt the pressure lift and started with the whole pregnant “laugh cry”. Now, of course, whenever we do anything related to sheetrock mud, Shawn has to insert some comment about motherhood.

The next story is another one that I can laugh about now, but when it happened, I definitely did not think it was funny.

The day was February 22, 2008. It was a Friday morning so I would have been getting ready to teach or go to class. I was in my 25^th week of pregnancy- just passed the half way point. Also, for me, it was when I was just starting to show. Now, I don’t get the cute belly bump that everyone else seems to get. I carry all over. It’s as if the babies are laying horizontally with their arms stretched around one side to my back and they legs stretched out around the other side. So here I am, 25 weeks, and I just look fat-not pregnant by any means. To make matters worse, nothing fit. I was just barely growing out of my “normal” clothes, but wasn’t big enough to look good in any maternity clothes.

I was staring at my closet trying to find something to wear, it was the end of a long week, nothing fit, and I was feeling fat. I was going to be late for class, but at this point, I really didn’t care. I started getting misty-eyed (of course, that happened a lot-I was pregnant!), I let out a sigh, and flopped back onto my bed. I hit the bed so hard that the headboard started rattling against the wall-oops. Next, I hear my fan and closet doors rattling. Okay, I get it! There’s a reason adults don’t jump on beds. Next thing I know, my entire house is rattling. My “shock wave” had reached clear over to the kitchen and I could hear the glasses and plates “clinking”. My eyes weren’t misting any more. I had a full-blown melt down. I was curled up, sobbing on my bed because my house had just proved that I really was fat. I ended up taking a personal day that day.

I never made it to class. My excuse had been that it was because I didn’t have anything to wear, but the morning was just a miserable morning. Actually, it had been kind of a miserable day. It wasn’t until the next day, when I was at work, that my coworkers asked me if I could feel it yesterday.

“Feel what?”

“You didn’t feel the earthquake at all???”

Ha! Sure enough, there had been an earthquake in Nevada that was felt through 5 different states. When did it hit Roy, UT? The second I sat my fat butt on the bed. Don’t you just love God’s sense of humor? ;-)