Week 30: Keep it 100

By Published On: June 9th, 2015

Well, we’ve made it to 30 weeks, folks. With roughly […]

30 weeks (1 of 4)
Well, we’ve made it to 30 weeks, folks. With roughly 10 weeks left in the game, it feels like a countdown before baby boy’s arrival is upon us. That said, Jesse and I have been spending more time together—just the two of us—because as luck and good timing would have it, Anaïs is down in Florida with her grandparents for another week-and-a-half! (Huzzah!) And admittedly, these past few days have been nothing short of amazing.
We have been taking advantage of this togetherness by enjoying the silence (because 3-year-olds talk, man) and going on dates. We’ve tried new restaurants and hung out with other couples sans children. We’ve gone to the movies. (Side note: Have you seen the new Mad Max? So. Good.) And we’ve talked deeply about our lives independently as adults and our lives as we move from raising just one child to now raising two.
They say everything changes when you have kids. And yes, to some extent, that’s absolutely true. But how much it changes really is up for debate. We have made a very conscious effort to remain true to ourselves. Sure, gone are the days when we could stay up all night and nurse our hangovers in bed all day afterwards. We’re growing up; we’ve got kids. Kids equal responsibilities and real life. There are babysitters and curfews and budgets. Sleeping in—like, really sleeping in—isn’t really a thing anymore, and staying foggy when your kids need you to be on doesn’t seem fair. Yet, we find ways to maintain all of the good and responsible parts of enjoying life and being carefree even after evolving from who we were in our youth to who we are as parents.
We don’t want to be those parents who dedicate their entire lives solely to their kids until they leave the nest. Nothing terrifies me more than doing just that and then looking at my husband 18 years later and not knowing who he is because we somehow lost ourselves in our children. So we prioritize, we re-evaluate, and we adjust here and there. We have faith in our abilities as parents while keeping our identities. It sets the stage for our children to know that while they are obviously and crucially important to us, we as adults are just as important, too, if not more. It teaches them that we had independent and autonomous lives before they came into the picture. And I hope they prioritize themselves and their relationships when they too have children of their own.
It’s 1:30 in the morning and these are the thoughts eluding sleep for me tonight. Parenthood and pregnancy tend to bring them out, especially in those fleeting moments just before I’m supposed to be sleeping, apparently. In no time at all, we will be a family of four. I can’t express to you how excited I am for that day to come. For now, though, I’m reveling in what we have before it explodes into what will become our tiny universe.