On paint, pain and progress..

Houston. We have a paint colour. For our bedroom that is. I give you: Behr: Sparkling Spring. I have no idea how it reads on your monitor but it looks pretty depressing on mine. Rest assured it is soothing, warm and cool all at the same time. It is the perfect colour for a bedroom.
What an unprecedented ordeal that was.  Holy hormones. I have always been really confident/blase about paint colour. If it doesn’t work I’ll just paint it again. Big deal. This time? Not so much. You’d think it was Sophie’s Choice.  Poor Aaron.  Allow me to reiterate, poor Aaron.
But our room is looking pretty good. Aaron the long suffering slapped that paint up on the wall pronto even though I only settled on the colour late on Saturday night.  (This is when it helps to have a small space). Our new linens are on the bed, we have lovely new non-broken lamps!  They even match. I love the new look, although we need to finish up the white trim and the beadboard still.  My long desired rustic white paneling is going to have to be substituted with boringish bead-board because we are just not that handy/endowed with tools/may possibly be a bit crunched for time if we don’t want to bring home a baby to a construction site.
We experienced our maiden voyage to Ikea. It was momentous and life-changing.  Upon my return I posted the following to facebook:
Feeling very sad about all the wasted, empty years I have lived without Ikea.
I genuinely feel this way. Oh the time, money, angst and space that could have been saved if only Ikea had come into my life sooner. But better late than never eh?  We did great there and came away with several things we needed and spent less money than I anticipated we would,  we even stuck to our list which I hear is quite the accomplishment.  I would go again just to eat the almond cake.
As for other developments. We are ONE week from D-day. As in due date. As in, the day the baby is supposed to become an independent physical entity (aka being born).  Which I know means nothing.  According to the way I feel it means nothing. My body seems quite unaware. I continue with my daily routine. I continue to work out with a vengeance every day with barely a Braxton Hick. There continues to be no sense of imminence.
I have never gone more than a few days past my due date before, but this time I think she’s in there to stay- until she is forcibly removed that is.  I’m in no hurry to get her out, really and truly I am not.  I am an unnaturally content pregnant woman when I get beyond the first trimester,  but the idea of forcible removal (aka induction) and the inevitability of her being HUGE if she lingers for 2 additional weeks , and her departure doing me damage as has happened in the past when I have delivered huge (and not even late!) babies (aka 9lb4oz Gracie breaking my pelvis in half), does trouble me considerably.  And so I obsess. ‘Cos we know how helpful that is.
Speaking of obsession and bringing us to the “pain” part of the post. Finny is having some trouble with “missing me very, very, very much” when he goes to school. It makes him sad and it gives him a tummy ache. This in turn makes me very sad, but what absolutely made my heart swell the other night was listening to him and Gracie chatting. He was lying in her bed (she reads to him every night before he goes to his own room, but he had apparently lingered for some wise counsel.) I was about to tell him to go to his room when I overheard her saying, “and so Finny, you must remember that everyone has fears. Even daddy does.”
Finny, “What is daddy’s fear?”
Gracie: “He fears not being able to protect us if something bad happened when he was not close by.  He fears that you will be sad at school and stuff like that”.
I thought that was so intuitive! I know Aaron has never discussed things like that with Gracie before, she just knew and I found it amazing for a just turned 9 year old to understand the fears of her big strong dad and so sweet that could share it to comfort her brother.
I sat on the stairs and listened to their conversation for ages. It was beautiful. She talked about everything.  How his teacher may seem as though she does not care, but that she really did-that maybe she is just busy and distracted and probably very tired (giving him lots of examples as to why may be true). She talked about her own fears and how she was dealing with them. She helped him talk out his fears and then sing them, and say them in various silly voices to take the power out of them.   She reassured him. She was marvelous. Just marvelous.
Afterwards I told her how proud I was of her. And I pointed out that her own struggles had made her so compassionate and powerful in being able to help others , just as I had predicted they would when things were particularly bad for her .
I remember my own brother telling me the same thing when I was going through terrible post partum depression and panic attacks.  When I asked him why I had to suffer this way, he told me how powerful it would make me one day, in being able to help others.  He knew this because he too had suffered terrible anxiety.
To see the happy part of this cycle come to fruition with my daughter and son is so beautiful and rewarding.  I have suffered along with them, perhaps even more than they have. Just wanting them to be happy and carefree.
Someone at the gym wears a shirt with the legend, “Pain is weakness leaving the body”. As a personal trainer,  I’m not sure that I can endorse that particular notion since physical pain while working out is not generally a good sign (bearing in mind that pain and burn are quite different). But! I digress.
The same is not true however, for emotional pain.  Emotional pain is a sad necessity for emotional and spiritual growth, I’m pretty sure of that. I really do think the painful things we endure can with God’s help make us stronger, more powerful in our ability to relate and heal others. It can refine us and make us infinitely more beautiful and more useful servants for Him.
My little son has lamented to me today that this “phase”  he is having to endure right now  “is not fun” and he just wants to “get through it”.  I know his pain. I feel it acutely. I want him to get through it already too. But I know it is making him stronger. I reminded him that I have always believed that it was his mission to help and heal the hearts of others. He is a natural comforter but I believe he is going to be a force for healing in the world, and so a little pain and growing in compassion is inevitable and necessary for my normally carefree and happy boy.
As a mom, it is killing me. He didn’t do this when he was 2 in the nursery, or when he started preschool or kindergarten. He saved it for the week before I am due to give birth. Awesome. ;)  Ah well, that is life eh?  But man alive,  walking away from a sobbing child in a school hallway, as he is being restrained by his long-suffering teacher as he reaches out and calls, “Mommy, I just really don’t want to miss you!” is pretty hectic stuff for any mom, let alone one great with child and hormones.   I won’t lie. I came right home and cried to my own mommy about it.  It sucked.
But, we are growing. And that is what life is all about. Right?

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