I’m Back…Sort Of! What I’ve Been Up To

My FOAS! How I’ve missed you. The days of my “break” from blogging have clipped by but also have felt like I haven’t been here in literal months. I can recall the end of the first week after not blogging. Charles and I were sitting on the couch, re-watching some show likely, and I turned to say to him how the last week had felt like a month. I was sure I’d just jump right back in the next week, but then I started nesting hardcore…washing and folding baby clothes, organizing, prepping for a virtual baby shower—where that lead image is from, something my friend Alicia snapped of us after all was said and done—so many things.

Then the next week, my best friend (Alicia) stayed in town and I settled into being treated like a literal queen. Surely, a queen doesn’t busy herself with writing blog posts, so I didn’t either.

And then by the time week three turned the corner, I started getting quite comfortable figuratively speaking just as I was getting wildly uncomfortable physically. But thoughts like “I wonder how everyone is doing?” and “I really miss those people” were had and random blog post topics keep writing themselves in my mind, so I pulled myself back in.

I was going to write a post today about how I’m feeling about my bedroom, now that most of the major pieces are in place. Spoiler alert: It’s missing something, and I think I know what it is. But I wanted to ease in. You don’t just leave a room for hours, come back unannounced, and say “so, anyway…as we were saying…” as if nothing happened.
Today will just be more of a hello. A how the heck are ya. A Happy New Year to all (25 days later).
So hello. How the heck are ya? Happy New Year (25 days later). I’m sort of back, or at least whatever “back” looks like these days.

The Hernandez-Shaw residence has been keeping busy prepping for baby. So much so that I keep forgetting that my birthday is next week every time someone asks me if I have plans for my birthday. “Huh? What birthday?” is my mind’s first internal answer. It’s a tricky one. The day comes two days prior to starting my maternity leave, so while I normally take that day off, I’ll be working. And while I normally like to do something or go somewhere, I’m so uncomfortable but also we’re hunkering down to stay as healthy as we can prior to baby’s arrival, which, speaking of, is in just a few short/long weeks! What? How did this get here so fast (but also painfully slow ha).

It’s hard to wrap my head around how this time next month, I’ll likely have a tiny cooing (or crying) baby in my arms. Both the excitement and nerves are building for sure, as neither Charles nor myself know what’s waiting on the other side for us. Obviously, our daughter, but I’m absolutely certain that neither of us can even begin to picture what that new life will be like. I’ve been trying to take advantage and sleeping in until at least 9 am when I can, but I’ll be happy to trade that in for a look at my daughter’s face. And the look on my husband’s face as he looks at our daughter’s face.

We’re mostly ready in terms of “stuff.” We have a few more things coming, but now it’s mostly just letting the time go by until she’s ready to make her arrival. Any advice from other mothers or parents out there for these last few weeks leading up to the big event? I’ll take all that you’ve got.

So that’s it for today. The biggest Tuesday Gratitude I can conjure up is this bumbling baby in my abdomen who is nearly ready to make her earthside appearance. My daughter. Wow. I can’t wait to introduce her around here. 🙂

But before signing off, I do want to say something about the expected frequency of posts around here. And that thing is that…I have absolutely no idea how often I’ll be writing in the early part of this year. I have things to share of course (all things room design, other things around the house I’ve done that might be useful to some of you here, motherhood things, etc.) but I’ll do the best I can! My fingers on this keyboard, on the back end of this blog, doesn’t feel as foreign as I thought it would after numerous weeks. I really missed being here, so again, I’ll do my best to pop on regularly until at least baby is here, and then the next time you’ll hear from me will likely be a little after she’s here and I’m able to blog. I really want to document her birth story mostly for myself, but if anyone is interested in reading (I always used to love reading birth stories, well before ever dreaming of having my own), then even better. I’ll send an email everytime there’s something new to read, and likely post on Instagram about it, so if you’re still there and want to know when a post is up, be sure to follow along somewhere/somehow.

See you soon, FOAS.