And Then There Was...The 2nd Trimester...by Liimu

Ahhh...the 2nd trimester! Cue Disney music...

After more than two months of feeling like I should be living in a dark cave, with my husband throwing food outside the entrance for me to slither out and devour every 90 minutes, I finally feel like a human being once more. I wish I could say that I am now running 4 miles 5 days a week, but let's not push our luck, shall we not?

I have to say that God sure does know what He is doing, because my resurgence of energy and feeling human times perfectly with my life getting INSANE. I won't even touch on the fact that work has ramped up to an unprecedented level of busy-ness. It's a good busy, so it feels almost blasphemous to complain about it. (Plus, it's going to pay for the bouquets of flowers I intend to send to myself in the hospital in advance of my scheduled c-section so that for this last baby, I have the experience of having a room full of flowers that I've sort of secretly always wanted.)

The other thing that's suddenly happening is that our family has gone from watching on the sidelines (pun intended) as our friends shuttled their kids here, there and everywhere all fall to having a ton of activities happening in what feels like 18 different directions. Devon begins winter swim on Monday - practice 5 days a week and weekend swim meets - and our not-quite-four year old is actually really good at and really enjoying soccer. We had always promised ourselves that we wouldn't push them into doing any activities, but that if they showed a true interest in something we would support them and strongly encourage them to pursue it. Autumn has been kicking the ball around all summer with dad and is settling into soccer like the game was invented for her. The funny thing is that I have friends who's kids are already on traveling teams, my sister's three kids have all been playing soccer for years, and it has seemed like a staple of suburban parenthood that our family was just not going to experience. Just goes to show that kids are different. My three kids have very different interests and what works for one definitely does not work for the others. Still trying to figure out what the middle one is into (other than singing and monologuing in the mirror).

A hectic pace, a frenetic schedule, but through it all I am somehow managing to stay in flow. Just this morning I got a meeting cancellation that freed me up to take care of some other work-related activities that I had been trying to figure out how I was going to complete. I swear, for the past three days I have felt like there was a mixed up Rubik's cube in my head and then today it's like someone just took a paintbrush to all the different sides and it is now miraculously solved. It's flowing like that.

Speaking of Being in Flow, someone asked me when I told her I was pregnant how I was going to manage a fourth kid - "It's so expensive and you complain now about the logistics of the kids you already have!"

I said to her, "In my experience, God doesn't come up with HALF a plan."

My thought for the week...there is a God and it ain't ME!!! Hope you'll tune in next week for all the Week 14 FUN!!!

The Flow - by Liimu

On Tuesday, I was very proud of myself for remembering to post my blog, and it was all about what I have learned from being in Italy about being in the Flow of life, as opposed to my very To Do List heavy life I live back in the States.

Of course, then I found out that my blog post day is Thursday and so only those of you who happened to be up and reading Motherhood Later at 4 am on Tuesday morning got to read it.

I wasn't going to post today, because we are now rushing around in the throes of pre-boarding mania - packing, showering, checking under the bed for the iPod charger, trying to make it to one last free breakfast buffet, etc.

But I thought it was fitting that rather than waxing poetic on how wonderful my life will be now that I can bring home the spirit of Italia and living in the flow all the time, I can actually see that there is a time and a place for both being in flow and living within structured guidelines.

Last night, on my husband's birthday, we walked for about nine hours looking for the perfect place for us to have dinner and celebrate our last night in Italy and my husband's birthday. We had several people recommend places in a fairly far-off region called Trastevere. Though we had enjoyed the most wonderful meal of our lives just the night before at a restaurant called Osteria Della Vite, on a tiny side street by the same name, we made the trek across the bridge to try to find the restaurant. As we walked into the town, we were both just not feeling the vibe at all and decided at the last minute to turn around and try to find "our" restaurant in "our Rome." (I did find the perfect tank top, though, for two euros less than what it cost across the bridge.)

We walked around for another hour, getting more and more discouraged that we would ever find our place, unable to ask for directions because neither of us speaks Italian. Finally, with just the flow to guide us, we found "our" restaurant and had yet another meal that made my eyes roll back in my head. It was the structure of knowing that we loved our restaurant, combined with our faith that the flow of life would lead us to it that led to the perfect ending to the perfect Italian vacation.

In the same way, I guess I hope to be able to continue to live my life with just enough structure to make me feel like I'm steering the boat, but just enough flow to remind me that I'm not the one making the waves.

Mother's Day Delight

Today is a day to celebrate.

Happy Mother's Day.