The day before the day

I'm thinking about the day before Lars was born. (Today being June 11, the day before Lars's third birthday.)

In the morning I rehearsed with 60 kids who made up a choir that would perform the next day. I remember I was wearing a maxi dress with this sort of psychedelic print that probably made me look huge. In fact it did make me look huge. In fact I was huge.

Isn't it funny that now I wish I had pictures of myself at the end of my pregnancies? I definitely have some end-of-pregnancy photos from Theo. None from Ida, though, and none from Lars. At the time, taking a picture of myself sounded like the worst possible idea. Now, I wish I had documentary evidence of how I looked. Oh well.

After the morning practice, I fought the super-nesting urges to paint my kitchen (I had painted the stairwells the entire week prior) and instead lay on the couch all afternoon because for once I didn't want to go into labor early. He wasn't due until June 14, but I felt pretty sick to my stomach and tired and felt like I could make it happen sooner if I wanted to, but I didn't want to miss the choir. So I rested. The next day I woke up at 5:30 a.m. to a huge, painful contraction, and I knew that baby would be coming out before I went to bed again that night. 

I can remember walking around slowly and quietly in the half-dark, rocking away the contractions and putting on my Classic Pregnancy Church Outfit which consisted of a black skirt and a black shirt. Whether it actually was slimming is up to my imagination, since...no pictures. The contractions lasted all day but were nowhere near regular (I sometimes went 20 or 30 minutes between them) so I made it to stake conference, then went home and tried to rest. I sat on the basement carpet, cut out triangles for bunting for Theo's room and tried to watch "Matchstick Men" (why???) while Matt watched the kids and made dinner. I couldn't focus on the movie so I turned it off and let the kids come down and watch "Charlotte's Web." To this day I don't really feel like watching either movie. The bishop called to chat about stake conference and I tried to act normal. Robbie and Hannah came over and I tried to act normal but it got harder and harder to do that.

Anyway, it's funny how every day, whether it's a normal day or a big day, just feels like a day while it's happening. Then three years later moments from that normal day (which in this case turned out to be a big day) stand out in this bright and shiny way and I'm so happy about my life. And my fantastic almost-almost-almost 3-year-old.