Wednesday, April 16, 2014

April 16th - The day that everyone's happy!

It's only 4:00pm and I've already had such a great day! I woke up in enough time to have a little conversation with Cody, which hasn't happened in the mornings for a while.. I like to push my "get out of bed time" wayy past an acceptable time.

When I got to work, I parked a little further away than I'm used to because management requested that we leave the main parking lot open for parents dropping off and picking up. So as I got a little closer to the entrance gate, there was a mom and her 4 year old son there, walking in about 10 seconds before I got to the gate.. Which was plenty enough time for them to keep walking instead of hold the gate for me. And that was fine; I was expecting it. And then, all of a sudden, the little boy ran back to the gate and held it open for me, only me, to walk all the way through! 4 YEARS OLD! I just couldn't believe my eyes, that was just the dang sweetest thing I'd seen in a long time! His parents are definitely doing something right!
And then later on, I got to go on a last minute lunch date with Cody! He didn't pack a lunch and needed some food, so I got off work a little early and we went to Artic Circle so I could have a raspberry cheesecake milkshake.. delicious, by the way! Instead of going to the one closest to our house, we went down to Lindon, because it was closer to Cody's work. Normally, there are little teenagers working there who really couldn't care less about their customers and just take the order and continue talking amongst their coworkers, but not this time!

We had an older lady take our order, and she was so invested in what we were getting! She even reorganized the way she put in our food so that my shake went from $3.50ish down to $1.75! She had the biggest smile on her face the whole time, and was just so dang sweet! Then when our food was ready, the nicest guy brought it over, asked if we needed anything extra, and with a smile on his face, he walked away. And then he returned a few minutes later asking how our food was, if we needed anything again, and asked about my milkshake. I told him it was fabulous and he responded with, "Yeah, I made it." He said that in the cutest way possible and not in a bragging way, which he followed by telling us that he's getting cross-trained to work up front, and it's his first day and he's having a great time! He asked if we wanted complimentary ice cream cones (which of course we accepted) and went right away to get them!

As we were leaving, a random customer said, "My daughters just had babies, and both of them asked me, 'Dad, when is this baby going to come?!' " and then in an Irish accent he said, "so I told them, 'when the fruit is ripe, it will fall from the tree.' " Cody and I laughed and told him that that was a good response, and started walking away, and right as we got to the door, he yelled, "The fruit fell!"


Spring is such a magical time. All of this is almost enough to make me forget about my enormously swelling feet, ankles, and calves.. almost. Cody has two softball games tonight, and I can't wait to watch! Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Monday, April 7, 2014

My due date is next month!


As we are in the final stages of getting ready for our little boy to come into this world, there are all sorts of emotions coming to the surface. If you follow me on instagram, you know that we had baby chicks in our preschool class this week, and they all hatched on their own time during the week. The first two hatched while I was at home, but the third hatched while we were all there to see. It was in that moment of seeing that tiny baby chick trying its hardest to push its way out of that shell that it finally hit me; I'm going to be having a baby.. a small human being that I am going to be in charge of keeping safe, healthy, and keeping him on track with growing. When that chick was making its way out of the shell, I lost it. There's no way that me, a 23 year old that still feels like a 20 year old with hardly any experience with babies, is going to be a MOTHER! I had no idea what to do with that baby chick.. did I just leave it in the incubator? Did it need food? Did it need some snuggles? Was I supposed to wash it or just let it try to live on its own?!

I got some really great encouragement from friends and mothers around me that made it all seem okay, and I'm doing much better with it all now. The next day I held some of the chicks, and thought about when my little one is going to be coming. I've heard that there's a lot of "motherly instincts" that just kick in once your child is born, and you know what to do for the most part.

I think I had my first semi-"motherly instinct" yesterday when we were at my in-laws and Dexter had been playing outside and threw up. He was fed way too much human food from the millions of people that were in Highland for the weekend, and it just wasn't doing well in his stomach. After Cody cleaned it up, all I could think about was him feeling better. I went and laid down on the couch and wanted to cuddle with Dexter, and I wanted to go home so that he could feel more comfortable. I just didn't know what to do to make him feel better, but I just wanted to keep trying.

This morning, I watched a video that a mom made of her little son. She took random videos of the small moments and big moments of her son's life throughout his first year. Happy and sad, good quality and bad, but it was real and it was the little moments of her son's life that she wanted to remember. I was bawling my little eyes out and just like that, I felt ready. I know I won't be as ready as I could be, but I've heard that no one really is with their first. I'm so ready for my son to come to this crazy world so that I can play with him, watch him grow, and be his mother. I'm ready for Cody to be a dad and show his immense love for another human being that is part of him and part of me. I'm ready to watch Dexter be completely confused and challenged, but ultimately accept our baby as his little brother and play mate.

There are so many amazing things that are on the verge of happening and turning our lives completely upside down, and I am so excited!