Fire in The Belly

I am taking a cue from Amalah and reeling you in with a picture! 4th of July (waiting for the parade) in my town...almost worth the exorbitant taxes, don't you think?

I really cranked out there for the past month, huh? The going got a little tough, and instead of the tough getting going, well...the tough (or not so tough) got bitchy. I blame it on the lack of sleep, really. Oh, and the heartburn. There is definitely more heartburn in the last month. And did I mention the braxton hicks or the fact that my back seizes up two or three times a day in the most painful 30 second intervals (the term "most painful" should be interpreted as a relative term as I have yet to do the actual labor...which I think might hurt a little...)? Also, I would love to be able to wear shoes, I really miss shoes. How quickly does the swelling go down?

Basically, I am blaming this all on Butterman.

Really though? I am going to miss this mess we call pregnancy. For most of the time, it was great. I felt great, my husband was infatuated with me, and truth be told, the whole thing made me feel kind of special in a way that nothing I have ever done before has. Allow me to be a total sap (which when you are pregnant, people give you leeway to do) and declare: I think this is the purpose of life...Butterman may be my calling. Someone alert OPRAH! Seriously, alert Oprah. And ask for tickets to the "my favorite things show." A girl could really use a cashmere Ralph Lauren V-Neck sweater for her and her dog.

Now that this process is winding down, and I only have two weeks left until my due date, I am starting to think that I will miss having Butterman be inside me. I will never again be so close to this little baby. Butterman will come out and start the long, but blink of an eye process, of growing up and becoming independent. He will by necessity pull away from me and my husband. We will give him everything we have, all of our love, attention, patience and most likely money. In exchange, he will grow into a what we had hoped, a man (or woman)with a bright future. And before I can take two breaths, I will be dropping him off at Harvard for his freshman year, with a mini fridge, a laundry basket and two pints of my blood to sell for money for books. Then he will promptly meet the girl of his dreams who is no doubt from the Boston area...and in the biggest display of karma kicking me in the ass THAT UNGRATEFUL BUTTERMAN WILL STAY IN BOSTON TO MARRY HER! Relegating me to seeing him on Thanksgiving and every other Christmas. Hopefully this girl will be Jewish and I can see him every single Christmas...

Well that kid is not going to Boston, I can tell you that much. Villanova was good enough for me! He won't get one by me...I invented that move...going away to college to meet the man of my dreams and never going home again! PLEASE! Don't even try it...been there, done that. One step ahead of you. Just because you are going to Harvard doesn't mean you can get one past your old mom...

Wait. Where was I? Oh yeah, I am getting nervous about letting this Butterman out. I like him close. And although my husband feels like I have been pregnant for two years, lately it feels like the time has flown by. Butterman will be here before we know it. And our lives will change in ways I can't imagine or ever really know.

But something tells me, it won't be too long before my husband and I are driving back from Harvard, all alone in the car...after having dropped off our first born. I will think back to these last moments of having him so close, so dependent on me, so little and wonderful and beautiful. It will not be lost on me that I have taken that very drive myself all these years, in the reverse, after having left home in Boston to go to school in Philadelphia; and I will understand what it must be like to be a parent.

And I think in relative terms, that just might be "the most painful."