This and the Other

I currently find myself living in two worlds:  This World and The Other World.  In The Other World I am still pregnant with Andrew and whining about feeling huge and uncomfortable and counting down the weeks. I'd be 34 weeks right now instead of  closing in on 8, Christmas would be about baby showers and getting ready for the baby.  I would have used this time to set up his bassinet and make space for his teeny tiny things.  I was supposed to be watching my sugars and counting carbs.  But I'm not... at least not that anyone knows.

And I suck at keeping secrets... hence the blog.

Instead of obsessing about what should have been, I've allowed myself a few luxurious moments to think about what will be.  Thinking like this, imaging where we'll be a year from now, is risky.  I did that nonstop with my last pregnancy.  By the time you reach 18 weeks, it only makes sense to start picturing the changes, right?  I'm trying not to do that as much this time so maybe it won't hurt so deeply if... well, let's just leave it at "if".

Next year at this time, if all goes as planned, I will have a 9 year old, a 13 year old, and 15 year old... and, oh yeah a 5 month old!  I can picture my current children without too much trouble.  G will have lost even more of his baby face and he'll be busy with the new third grade basketball team and friends.  K will have grown a few inches (I hope!) and be well versed in the glory that is the young days of teenagedom.  Soccer will have finally wound down for both of them.  And J will be leaving those early days of her teenage years behind her as she prepares to turn 16 and start looking at colleges.  She'll be working the 10th grade musical, putting her artistic talents to work on the stage crew again.

Where will the baby fit into all of this chaos?  Where will I find moments to make my own baby food and go to story time at the library?  How do I make it to every soccer and basketball game?  How do I juggle helping with 3rd, 7th, and 10th grade homework while still loving a newborn the way s/he'll need to be loved?  We're naturally inclined to a fair amount of disorganization to begin with.  Am I seriously going to add the stress of another risky pregnancy to all of this?  (Yeah, clearly I'm asking that question a little too late.)

There's a saying I keep coming across on Pinterest:  What screws us up the most is the picture in our head of how it's supposed to be.  I am going to make my own framed versions of this and post them throughout my house.  Maybe over the next several months I'll get better at visiting the "other world" less often and ground myself firmly in this world again.  Maybe I can let go of what's supposed to be and focus on what is.  Maybe picturing what's to come will feel less risky.