Baby You Are Most Wanted!

In December I read a posting on one of my favorite blogs, on how wanted this 3rd baby was, the first after a vasectomy reversal.  It really touched my heart!

This week everything we did was centered around the preparation for our little baby, who is due to arrive very soon! As I pondered on what we had accomplished during the week, I realized how wanted this Baby is!  Every one in this house of nine is playing, working and planning around the reality of a baby who will soon enter our lives!  Little Daniel (17months) would sit next to me, due to a lack of space on my lap, tap on my tummy and say: “Baby!”  Andrew (4 1/2 years) will tell me numerous times during the day how much he loves this baby.  Danika (6years) and David (3years) constantly asks me how many nights before baby is due.  Josua and CJ are looking out for me constantly, not allowing me to do any heavy duty work and ready to help. Heidi-Mari is always checking on me physically, reminding me to go and rest a little, bathing the little ones, finishing a meal or making my bed! Christo is currently driving us  everywhere we need to be and want to be, as I experience heavy contractions if I drive. He even does all the shopping for the house, in between a very busy schedule at work!

This baby is most wanted!  Every one is looking forward to his/her arrival in great anticipation.  Last weekend I realized that I still needed to do a lot before this baby could arrive.

On Monday morning CJ and I re-organized the main bedroom. Partly because the main bedroom will also serve as the delivery room.  We need to create space for the birth pool, but mainly because my nesting instinct is motivating me to spring clean every single space in the house!  We also needed to clean and re-organize my dressing room, as it is also my store room for sewing projects and clothes not currently being used.  Over the past few months, everything that had no specific place, was dropped in my dressing room.

On Monday afternoon we finished sorting out all the boxes of newborn clothes packed away from previous babies. Over the past few years we accumulated quite a lot of baby clothes so Heidi-Mari and Danika had a ball looking through everything. They had a hard time deciding what clothes are still soft and new enough for our newborn baby, while I was resting on the bed and and I even fell asleep at one stage.

On Tuesday we washed everything.  I didn’t know there were so many, until I saw the washing line.  Since we don’t know if baby is a boy or a girl we are prepared with blue, pink, white, yellow and green clothes, blankets and towels!  Many of the pink stuff, had been accumulated during the past 5 years, since we had no baby girls!

On Tuesday afternoon Christo took me and the girls to Tygervalley Centre to get some last minute stuff for baby.  The girls was looking forward to this afternoon for weeks!  Danika just wanted to buy everything pink she could lay her eyes on! CJ and Josua looked after the 3 boys and prepared dinner!

By Wednesday my nesting instinct was in overdrive and we spring cleaned the bedroom of the 4 boys!  Now, my boys, are REAL boys.  They don’t know how to keep a room tidy - especially David (3years) and Andrew (4 1/2 years) - most of their toys are underneath their pillows or under their beds! My big boys struggle to keep their bathroom clean and they find it most difficult to keep their horse riding equipment separate from their beds and closets.  So Heidi-Mari and I dug into their room, while Josua and Danika played with the little ones - preferably in another room or outside, since there is no way to clean a room and sort out junk when the owners of the junk are in the vicinity!  CJ went to the horse riding school to check on Silverball and arrived back just in time to move everything (beds and closets) back to where they belong! It is so nice to have a strong, young man in the house to move heavy stuff around and make it look like it is as light as a feather!

Over the festive season, Christo and Heidi-Mari took care of all our shopping, but I needed to go to a supermarket myself so Christo picked me up at 15h00.  CJ and Heidi-Mari prepared supper and Josua and Danika played with the little ones, under the supervision of CJ and Heidi-Mari!   I got a little more than the usual groceries, to make sure we would have enough during the first few weeks after baby’s birth!

Thursday morning we headed out to the vegetable garden.  CJ made me a 6th raised bed, filled it with compost and planted grass (taken from the space where the 6th raised bed, now stands) in a dead patch in the back yard!   Heidi-Mari and I planted the 5th raised bed with 2 trays of beans and 8 trays of lettuce!  I’m making sure we’re not running out of lettuce after baby is born!

In the afternoon, I was still not satisfied with deep cleaning the house and started on Daniel’s room, while Heidi-Mari and Danika cleaned their room.  Daniel’s room actually only needed to be dusted and vacuumed. The main work was sorting out toys!  It took me the whole afternoon, since Daniel didn’t want to leave me alone, and as soon as I put a toy in a certain bucket, he would take it out again.

Friday morning Heidi-Mari and I finished planting in the vegetable garden.  We planted four trays of carrots and three trays of tomatoes, in the 6th raised bed.

By now I was exhausted, but still needed to get the boys’ hair cut before baby was born.  So Christo picked us up in the afternoon and drove us to the hairdresser.  

I feel quite satisfied with what we accomplished during this week.  We still need to do a few things, but at least we are getting there. 

I have the tradition to croquet all baby’s receiving blankets.  While I’m croqueting I pray for baby’s safe birth, for the first few weeks of transition in a new routine in the house, for the new dynamics in the house - every member of the family automatically gets new responsibilities and have to adjust to their new position in the family hierarchy. I also pray that God would have a personal appearance to this child at the right time and that he/she would start a relationship with Jesus as his/her personal Savior.

This time Heidi-Mari could help me croquet.  

She does the first layer and I the final, second layer.   We’ve finished three pink and one blue receiving blanket.  

We still need to finish two blue ones and a green one! I love to dress my newborns in green!

This weekend I’m taking it easy. We had friends over for dinner and had a wonderful time of fellowship and encouragement. 

Tomorrow the men will assemble the birth pool and next week we will do the final finishing touches.  Will keep you posted.