My Firstborn

I have very obstinate children. They come by it honestly...and I mostly have myself to blame for it. I'm pretty sure I'm the one donating the bulk of the stubborn genes.

I was convinced that Strawberry was going to come this past week. I don't know why I was so sure of that....I was similarly convinced that Zara wouldn't come early and she didn't. But for some reason, I scoffed at my due date and made plans to give birth last week. I took the week off work, not wanting to subject my co-workers to my impending labor and felt confident that I could send word almost immediately of a safely arrived child. I was convinced that Strawberry was ready to come out. Except, apparently, she wasn't.

I've got to stop thinking I can convince my children to do anything my way. It just doesn't work and always leaves me disappointed.

Waiting to go into labor is an excruciating process because you never know when it may happen and you expect it at every turn. I haven't wanted to stray far from home because what if my water breaks in the middle of Target? I don't want to have to apologize to some poor underpaid worker while they mop up my amniotic fluid. Zara and I have mostly stayed indoors. She's watched her Mickey Mouse DVDs about 20 times each (and I finally returned them to the library because I couldn't take them anymore) while I worked my way through the entire third and fourth seasons of The Good Wife.

But we also went to the park everyday where Zara made lots of new friends ("I like make friends," she tells me quite frequently) and I even managed (with David's assistance) to drag my very pregnant self to the Provo Library yesterday for their Children's Book Festival where Zara received a free book and made herself a crown which she has been wearing for the past two days. Spending so much one-on-one time with Zara has been nice, especially since I'm not sure how well she's going to make the transition from only child to big sister. She'll pat my belly and say "The baby come out of the mommy!" but I don't think she realizes what that means for her. Zara really is the most ridiculously adorable (and exasperating) child and I think we both needed the time to enjoy each other's company, just the two of us, before both of our lives are upended by Strawberry's arrival.

Still, I would like Strawberry to arrive RIGHT now, rather than make me wait any longer. But we all know now how futile a hope that is....