Thirty-seven and thirty-eight weeks pregnant

It’s breakfast time and I am sitting here in a silent house. Last night my two toddlers spent their first night away from home without me. I hardly know what to do with myself!

The fact that I am due in the next few weeks has focussed my mind on how easy life actually is at the moment. Caring for a two and a half year old and a nearly four year old is pretty straight forward compared with what life was like two years ago when I had a one year old and a newborn and was definitely struggling. At that time I knew, of course, that there would be a light at the end of the tunnel. I just couldn’t see it.

My two boys fight, whine and need near constant entertaining and feeding but I can also pre-empt most things that I know will trigger a tantrum and I feel like they are at the stage where there is much more that is positive about child-rearing than negative. Sure, there is still all the housework, laundry, school-runs, cooking and changing nappies etc but the children give so much more back now in terms of fun. And they are both at the stage where they come out with the funniest comments. Matthew dreads ringing when he is away because he knows he will get thirty minutes or more of me saying “and guess what Harry said when I picked him up from school…”.

And I have had so much rest this pregnancy! In fact I have probably had more sleep than at any time during the last four years. This and the fact that I am settled in this house, have made friends and am super-organised for this baby’s arrival make me hope that post-partum depression will not be rearing it’s ugly head this time. We also have a part-time nanny due to start next month. The boys have greeted this news with a mixture of excitement and worry: “But will you still be here, Mummy?” or more excitedly “Will she brings rockets for us to play with?” The fact that I will be here at home while the nanny looks after them rather than leaving them somewhere else makes me think that this arrangement will suit the boys, who are not used to being left with others. And I plan to nap when the baby naps while Emma entertains the children better than I have ever done.

So I am looking forward to having this baby and in particular to not being pregnant any longer. But I am also making the most of these last couple of weeks knowing that my children are (mostly) well-behaved and relatively easy to look after.

Of course they’re not here at the moment so that might be why I feel inclined to write all this just now.