One Month Left

James:

It feels funny to call you James when we always refer to you as BabyJames, said quickly as if it was all one word. It has a southern-ness to it and a sweetness. I imagine we'll call you BabyJames for a long time and maybe Jamie sometimes, too.

Your due date is exactly a month away but I predict that we'll be seeing you sooner. I imagine you'll be just a tiny bit early like your sister was. Then again, if you come late, you could arrive on my birthday. All along, I have felt like it's been pretty cool to be pregnant with you through all the same seasons as my mom was pregnant with me (even though she was in California and I'm sure the seasons felt very different). Just to know that my mom and I were in the same stage of pregnancy over Thanksgiving and Christmas and that we may have felt the same mix of post-holiday January blues and baby-on-the-way excitement is a little bit magical, somehow.

You still wiggle and flex in my belly as if there was a ton of room for you to do so, but we ran out weeks ago, little one. So often, your feet glide across my belly and it's so clear that they are your feet. I don't remember seeing that with Emma. You seem ready to show off your parts. And even though I thought you'd have mellowed your movements a bit at this point, feeling your jabs and flips always reminds me that you're healthy and strong in there.

Keep growing, BabyJames.

Chicken Houses

Emma:

Before bed, you like to lay next to me and sing/recite every song and nursery rhyme that my tired mommy brain can come up with. You know the words to a surprising number of them and catch on quickly to the ones that are new by parroting the last words in each line. 

Then you like to play with my hair. You ask for two pieces of mommy hair and then for a screwdriver (sometimes two) so I give you imaginary screwdrivers and you're very excited. Then you twist my hair in your little hands while informing me that you are making a chicken house or sometimes a duckie house and then you ask me to look at it, even though it's at the back of my head and there's no way for me to see. But I always tell you that you've made a beautiful chicken house and you are very pleased with yourself.