Friday, January 1, 2010

Where are you Clark?

Hello. I'm not terribly surprised to announce that today is Clark's due date and he is showing zero signs of actually being due. For forty weeks I've had my blinders set on January 1, 2010, because that would be the day our son would be born. Well I was wrong, but at least I did a heck of a job of getting my hopes up so that I could be extremely let down when I woke up this morning and felt exactly the same way I did yesterday...or three months ago for that matter. I have crossed the finish line - where is my baby? Why do doctors even assign a due date? It would have been much better for me personally to not get my high hopes set on January 1, 2010, but rather say, the first week or so of January. This baby is not going anywhere any time soon, so I might as well just get comfortable, although that is kind of hard to do when I look and feel like a beached whale and every move I make requires ten times the effort of the normal human being. So basically Aaron and I are just wasting away. I guess the good news in all of this is that eventually, he will have to come out.

So Aaron and I have accepted the fact that he will be late. How late? There's no way to know. I'm going to go ahead and get my hopes set on having a February baby. Surely I won't be let down if I do that. I've never been a big fan of women broadcasting to the world exactly what is going on with their bodies right before labor, or during labor. For example, most people on Facebook are not too interested in the fact that a pregnant woman is 6 cm dilated, and I'm pretty sure 95% of men have no idea what that means anyway. Speaking of which, Aaron just confessed that he grossly misunderstood what dilating actually means, and it is hilarious to know what he thought it meant. You should ask him one day if you want to hear the thoughts of a clueless man when it comes to the female body. So I will spare the details of what my body is doing right now, just trust me when I say that Clark is showing zero signs of wanting out anytime soon. The only thing he is doing at this point is showing off his ability to stretch to all four corners of my belly. I can see an arm on one side and a foot on the complete opposite, and I know he is in there with a smirk on his face thinking, "I'm going to make my mom, the Type A overachiever who has to plan every second of her life out, want to pull her hair out." Mission accomplished, son. Well done.

To keep ourselves busy, Aaron and I have perfected Clark's nursery and pretty much the entire house. I accused Aaron of nesting, and he grunted and denied such allegations saying he was just trying to help me out a little bit. Well, friends, he sure did help. He cleaned, put complicated pieces of furniture and baby gear together, took a million incredibly heavy boxes of books up to the attic, insisted on the location of certain baby items in the house, helped pick out the outfit Clark's going to come home in, and pretty much sought out ways to make sure the house was perfectly ready for Clark. I guess he was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of cleaning and nesting he did last night, and is making up for it by playing with his rifle. Of all times it just has to be cleaned, he chooses the day of Clark's supposed birth. And he also just had to play with his new toy he got for Christmas from his dad, which was a bipod to shoot his rifle with. Tell me I didn't marry a turd. I bet you can't after looking at these pictures.



As I mentioned before, we did in fact work hard on Clark's room last night and now it is perfect. His room, which used to be stinky, messy, cluttered, and kind of eery because it housed Aaron's law school crap, is now my favorite room in the house. I think Clark is going to love it. Here is the big debut. If I had to choose a theme for his room, which is kind of hard to do, it would have to be safari animals, although that wasn't our original intentions. Somehow, the room ended up with several elephants, rhinos, giraffes, and a couple of froggies here and there.

This is Clark's crib. Duh. The stuffed animal is called "Slacker" and was given to Clark by his uncle Drew. The blanket was handmade by Yaya, my grandmother, and its one of my favorite of Clark's possessions.


I don't know why the bookshelf looks crooked in this picture. In real life, it is not.

This little piece of artwork shown above was not an option in Aaron's mind.
Clark HAD to have this.
Random, but whatever. Its cute.

This was my piece of artwork that wasn't an option. I love it.


And here are a few shots of the rest of the house that is so clean and ready for the little Rice man.



I love Jake. And Aaron.

That's it for the pictures. Back to the main message of this blog. It is 5:00 p.m. on Clark's due date and at this point, I'm pretty sure January 1 will not be his birthday. It is much harder than I expected watching this day come and go. We were given the option by our doctor to be induced on Tuesday, assuming Clark hasn't introduced himself yet. That is a much tougher decision than it seems, and we are getting a lot of crazy responses when we tell people that we are not automatically taking advantage of that. I am not going to dive into details right now because we still have a lot of praying and talking to do. But the bottom line is sooner or later, we'll have him. Aaron and I are about to take Jake for a 100 mile walk around the neighborhood. Surely that will make Clark begin his descent, right? Please please please keep us in your prayers over the next couple of days as we might have some tough decisions to make and our anticipation is soaring with each passing hour. I'm trying not to be anxious, because Philipians 4:6 straight up tells me not to be. But honestly, it seems impossible to not be anxious about this. We want Clark Randall Rice right here and right now. I hope this will be my last post before he gets here - if not, get ready for some serious bellyaching to come.

6 comments:

Jimbo and Rach said...

The nursery is very cute!

Liz T. said...

cute nursery! love it!

Deb said...

Kelly Bo Belly! You have me laughing, crying and praying! I love you so much!!!

mom said...

As all parents learn very soon after the birth of their children is that they have a mind of their own. Sounds like Clark will call the shots on this one.

Dale and Holly said...

Love all the pics and your nursery! You are too funny! First babies love to take their time and are just too content in momma's belly. He will come!

Megan said...

Love you roommie!