Vacancy

I'm ready.

I'm ready because I finally picked a stroller and car seat. Holy choices, Batman.

I'm ready because yesterday I went to Fashion Place Mall and stocked up on enough Bare Minerals (20% off sale!) to ensure that even if I never leave my house for a solid year my complexion will look good. I also got the NARS blush that has been on my wish list for some time and a bag of Sephora's standard free samples. On my way out of the mall I spied with my tired eyes those massage people that rub you for a dollar a minute in a sit-down chair. Hallelujah! I straddled that chair and let my belly hang like a ripe mango in a tree while I power napped for 15 minutes. After my sensory delicacy I treated myself to a Chick-Fil-A cookie sundae while I read the Paper Source catalog alone at a food court table. I took tiny bites and tried to savor what felt like one of my last few "me moments" before Baby comes. Incidentally, not one person knows our baby's name but he manages to get called Ebeneezer, Carl Reuben, Pip, Little Prince, or Joey by people in my life. I am glad that none of these names are correct.

I'm ready because Greg hung a hammock in our back yard yesterday WITHOUT A STAND. It is significant because four years ago we bought two wiry chokecherry trees and planted them 12 feet apart. We planted them 12 feet apart because we planted for the future and I knew that the future would morph spindles into support structures strong enough to hold my dream hammock. My dad says newly planted trees take three years to be ready because they SLEEP-CREEP-LEAP, meaning the first year they take root, the second year they show marginal growth, and the third year they go gangbuster toward the sky. This being the fourth year our trees proudly graduated to holding a net full of two spooning humans whose dog sat precariously balanced on their sideways hips. This seems to be the year all of my long-awaited dreams are coming true.

I'm ready because the nursery is finished. It is the new family lounge. I can't believe it was ever a guest/craft room combo. Hasn't it always hosted the four-poster crib and the hot air balloon wallpaper and the glider? Hasn't it always displayed a changing table staged with freshly laundered swaddle blankets waiting for first use? Every night I sway in the glider and daydream about the smell of a post-bath newborn while Greg sits against the wall reading his iPad and RE stretches out on the carpet teasing Lucy with bundled baby socks. Lucy fetches the sock bombs until she is tired and then even she brings her bone in and chews it next to us in the "flying frog" position. We pass the evenings away like illustrated figures in Goodnight Moon.

I'm ready because a week ago for FHE (Family Home Evening) I read Greg's written version of RE's birth story aloud for all of us to hear. What sweet memories came back. What a sweet feeling filled our home. What saliva filled my mouth when I remembered that I get Lorna Doone shortbread cookies at the hospital. (Those buttery gems are the pot of gold at the end of the labor and delivery rainbow!) What sweet conversation we three had about the eternal nature of families.

I'm ready because after so many years of being unsure if something else belonged in this house the answer is clear: there is a vacancy. Something is empty and we are all waiting for him to fill it. In 23 days or less.

*photo lyric from "Heart Vacancy" by The Wanted