Many thanks to blog reader Gretchen for sending not only three gorgeous wraps but two swaddling blankets that her mother made for her. I can’t wait to explain to the little bird where all of these things came from, their history and the women who sent them.
Well, my husband won the bet (and chose a box of maple cream cookies from Trader Joe’s); I got an email from Ruth. It was thoughtful and careful and I suspect that she’s had a chance to talk to someone at the good agency in between that last email and this one (they’ve kept in touch with their social worker, who is apparently a gem). She mentioned that they might have to cancel the visit because of Nora’s work, and for whatever reason this left me able to genuinely say that we’ll find a time, and they should come when they can. Cricket has apparently started stringing two words together into sensible sentences, which scares the crap out of me—he is a little dude now, and not a baby at all. Maybe we’ll see in a week and a half. Maybe not.
But since they might still be coming (from the way she phrased it, it sounds like they are probably still coming), I need to figure out my connection homework. I am going to make graham crackers shaped like animal crackers and just put them out like bridge mix and let that be whatever it will be (I put out fruit and nuts last time they visited, so this isn’t totally out of nowhere in terms of the way we entertain), but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count—because if it does count, I’m going to be invested in whether he gets to eat one or not, and that’s not a good mental space for me to hang out in. My best idea so far isn’t a great one, but here it is: I pulled a toddler toy out of the hope chest and assembled it, and might try to play with the kid with that. It’s a little Fisher-Price fire station (I removed the batteries as my step one: silent toys, best toys), and it reminds me of a Fisher-Price garage they had at the church nursery where I worked as a kid. I also showed Mr. Book the toddler stuff I’d pulled together to entertain Cricket on the upcoming visit; he told me to tell the blog that he’s been playing with the ball.
In my response to Ruth’s email, I did give a couple of pregnancy updates, and put in a “I can stop this if you don’t want to hear it” kind of disclaimer (less gruff than that, I swear!). I don’t know. I usually chat a bit about whatever’s going on with us, and right now that includes a lot of pregnancy stuff. It’s the same sort of stuff I might put on Facebook: I felt movement, we won’t find out the sex for like a hundred years, we did hear a heartbeat. This is complicated, in part because the only examples I’ve seen of how to do it are either Dawn’s way (super close, crazy awesome, not really feasible here) or, well . . . what I talked about in that post on Sunday.
Endure for a Night 