The new arrival!

She's here! The long awaited cherub has finally arrived! Aeries Lyn made her debut yesterday afternoon amid a flurry of activity in the birthing room. Oh, the joy to hold this precious gift from God, oh the joy to have the waiting over and the expectation fulfilled! There's nothing quite like gazing upon the face of your grandchild to realize how much love can fill your heart. My son, Daddy E, reminded me of his father at that stage, looking so proud and also so intimidated by this little child who will rely on him to take care of her for the next 18 or so years.

Can anyone describe the exhilaration of childbirth? First the uncomfortable waiting, then the painful patience, then the anxious anticipation, the work, the sweat, the mess, and finally the fulfillment! No other experience takes us humans through such a labyrinth of emotions.

I have to go hold my grandbaby now.

Rainy Days and Mondays...

As the song goes, Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down! Well, today is both - Monday and rainy. Not much going on; still waiting for the baby to be born. Momma L is going to the doctor today and they may induce her, since she's a week overdue now. The pressure is getting to us all, especially with the house all torn apart. We bring so much of it on ourselves... Have you ever had carpet replaced?

We decided to save a little money by tearing out the old carpets ourselves. Are we stupid or just gluttons for punishment? I mean, here we are with an extra couple in the house trying to get ready for their first baby, trying to put together a nursery, trying to get their stuff organized and settled, trying to cope with the idea that about-to-be new Daddy E will be shipping off to boot camp and leaving Momma L "alone" with baby Aeries at Grandma & Grandpa's house; and we decide to move out all the furniture and tear out the carpets. Do we have an installation date yet for the new carpets? NO! But this weekend was the only opportunity to get all the work done, so now we have to bide our time rattling around in the empty house, every little noise bouncing off the bare plywood floors.

Am I a little stressed today? You bet! Especially since I'm one of those people (One of "those" people!) who require some orderliness in my environment in order to retain any semblance of orderliness in my mind. Ok, so I'm a little anal-retentive, a little rigid in my thinking, a little psycho... whatever you want to call it. What that means is, if I don't have a space where everything is "as it should be," I get a little whacked out. So, yeah, I'm a little stressed.
Don't get me wrong - my house is normally pretty far from Martha Stewart on a good day, but I do like my things to at least be in the right room!

Oh, have I mentioned that in four weeks I'm having two parties at my house in one weekend? Yeah - I think I do bring on the stress all by myself! I've been waiting for an empty nest, but I didn't mean without furniture, I meant without kids!

Remember back in the 70's when therapists were recommending the primal scream to release tension? I think I may have to try it this week.

Waiting for Aeries

So our second granddaughter is due any day now - actually, she was due two days ago, but the doctors have been telling us she could be born "any day now" for over a week! Poor Momma L is just ready to explode! Daddy E is beside himself with anxiety. The anticipation is killing us all...

Amid the excitement and eagerness to meet this new family member, so many underlying issues are lurking, making it difficult to enjoy this precious time in our lives. Daddy E is unemployed - as is Momma L. To be fair, E has joined the military and heads off to boot camp in a month. Yes - it's a source of income and benefits for his little family, but with him so far away, it adds more stress to an already difficult situation. L plans to get a job as soon as practical after little Aeries is born, but that income will be at least a month away also, and takes her away from her precious bundle of joy.

Oh - did I mention that Momma L is still a child herself - only 18 years old, but at least through high school! She had actually also joined the military almost a year ago, and was in boot camp already when she discovered she was pregnant. (I have to wonder - didn't she know what caused that???) So they booted her from boot and sent her home to mommy. Oh - did I mention that Momma L's mommy is a drug-addicted serial divorcee? Her several children (L's siblings) span a decade and each has their own private daddy... not the best family for Momma L to come home to, especially bearing a "gift" her own mommy knows so well. So guess what - the good hearted folks that we are, we told them to come stay with us instead. We figured they could find employment fairly easily nearby and enjoy a less-stressful pregnancy.

Well, I guess we should have expected it - no jobs, no income at all. Except public assistance - our tax dollars at work. So the stress level for Momma L and Daddy E is minimal because they aren't bothering to find work, do fewer chores around the house than they did while in school and at home as children, sleep until noon and stay up half the night playing video games.

Our stress level, on the other hand, has skyrocketed! Just when we were expecting an empty nest, we get a bounce-back child and his pregnant woman (not yet wife... but that's another story!) Our electric bill has doubled - thanks to endless hours of TV and computer consumption, our food bill has doubled - despite the addition of food stamps, and our fuel bill has doubled - between price increases and the additional driving to doctor appts. Naturally, we are receiving no rent from our freeloading boarders, since they have no income! We're having to convert our exercise room (which we had just converted from a vacated child's bedroom) into a nursery and taking that opportunity to recarpet most of the house at the same time... so disruptive to have the whole house torn apart! All this "stuff" really interferes with our ability to enjoy the sweet antici---pation of the new granddaughter.

Someday we hope to really get to the empty nest phase in life... This is just another bump in the road through middle age, I suppose. Our youngest child graduated from high school over five years ago, and we seem to have had a revolving door since then. First the oldest (E) bounced back after a bad experience with a shared apartment. Then he found his footing again and left - to another, in what has turned into a string of bad apartment arrangements. The next week, the in-laws moved in. They were between houses, having sold one and waiting for the new one to be built. It was supposed to be a few months, but turned into a long year. Finally their new place was ready, and they left, only to be replaced a couple weeks later by our middle child A and her hubby R. Their rental house had been sold out from under them and they needed a few months to recouperate and find a place they could afford to purchase. That turned into another long year, but they finally were able to buy a home and move along. Not two weeks later, our youngest M got a change of duty station and moved back home until he could find a place to rent. Well, that was several months ago, and he's finally found a friend to share an apartment. Now we've got E back again, and it seems really lucky that we have the space for them!

Will we ever have an empty nest? I don't really know. But with God's grace (and no other way), we are plugging along and trying to focus on the joy that will soon be part of our daily (and nightly...) lives. We will find a routine that fits all our schedules and settle into a comfortable lifestyle for everyone. Hopefully, when Aeries finally arrives, we can all focus on the joy and the rest will work itself out!