we're making room.

my people + my "baby" for a few more months 

Truth be told, I think it took me till this most recent little vacation we went on to realize that I was rapidly approaching my third trimester. Wait - in my third trimester. I don't advocate living life with such a full plate that you forget you're pregnant for weeks at a time, but should you find yourself in your third trimester with your fourth child and realize you don't have a name, a crib, any pregnancy pictures, and you barely remember your doctors appointments -- I won't judge you. 

That's not to say I don't FEEL pregnant. I sure enough do. My pelvic floor has gone missing.  My nose is swollen like you wouldn't believe. If I make the mistake of taking my shoes off for too long, my feet are usually too swollen to put them back in. Waddling isn't a cute notion - it's just the easiest way to move around. 
My body feels pregnant but my heart and my brain are taking a little bit of time to catch up. 

I'd love to share how we're preparing for this baby and yet - I'm not super sure what to say. We love this sweet boy like you wouldn't believe but the whole experience is so different from the other times we've gone through this. Our first three were so close together and we were so in baby mode. Our hands were so full and we were so overwhelmed. There is nothing in me that can picture what it will be like to bring home a baby to an almost 4 year old, 5 year old, and 6 year old. I have absolutely no idea what it's like to bring a baby into a home that runs a small business. I have absolutely no idea what it's like to be a semi-working-at-home-mama with a newborn. I've never had a maternity leave and I don't know what maternity leave looks like when you're self employed. I've never had a baby while homeschooling. 

the greatest big brother + sister that ever lived

I feel confident saying this - one huge desire of our hearts for our trip to South Carolina was to reset our little entrepreneurial brains and come back more scheduled, with clearer lines dividing our work and our rest -- more present when we need to be present. I see the fruit from that. I still feel slightly overwhelmed at how much is on my plate. I still feel like I have a lot of plates spinning and most of the people in my life see very few of them, leaving me feeling slightly alone in my overwhelmedness. But I feel like those two weeks away helped me to blink real hard and see my family rightly again. When it's their time, it's their time. And that's how I want to prepare for this fourth Connolly. 

It seems like I remember having this semi-arrogant, semi-naive view as a first time parent where I said --  "This baby isn't going to mess with us. It's going to adjust to us and our schedule and our life. We'll really quickly get on a schedule and get back to normal." I said it often and felt it often and I'm not saying that babies should come in and wreck your life and dictate all the things, but I want this baby to have it's season. I want the Lord to write a whole new normal. He is a whole person, a being, one created by God and placed very graciously in our home. I don't have a crib for him or a name just yet, but I promise I'll make room for him in our life. We will make room. We will respect and honor the responsibility of this baby boy and we'll let him mess up our days and nights and our business if need be. Because he won't be messing anything up, after all. 

And that's how we're preparing. 
We're making room for him in our hearts.