Week 31 - Emma Turned 5

Welcome to week 31 of being pregnant, still working, still able to do many things and still loving life!

For myself I had a midwife appointment, I worked my first 3 day week and the little girl I have been nannying since she was four months old turn 5 years old!

How does that happen so quickly? You love and nurture and teach and train, you listen and help, you watch and encourage, applaud, make up games and crafts and so many fun and silly things and all of a sudden they turn 5! I may not have birthed Emma and her brother but I sure have put my heart and soul into their little lives each day that I get with them. I love them as my own and I'm so grateful to have been able to grow with them these past four, almost five years.

To me five is a very special age because you move from being purely a child of play and learning through play into that child of school and homework and play. School these days is hard, filled with long hours of sitting, learning and being separated from your family. I don't really agree with all of it but this is the stage she is in and moving full steam toward! I wonder how she will embrace it. It's such a big life change for any little, but she is so sweet, innocent, kind, sometimes timid and she will be alone to figure out a world of many noisy children whose rules she is unfamiliar with.

Kind of like us first time moms. We have lived life a certain way, had our friends, worked our jobs, gone to our activities, loved our husbands, had our routines and now that's all about to change. We are embarking on a journey of a lifetime (literally) and there are so many changes ahead, new rules, new faces, different life habits to embrace that I hope I can learn quickly and keep up with. All the while enjoying these short years I have with my baby (hopefully babies one day) and husband as we begin our family.

It's crazy to think about, all of this change about to happen in such a short while as I hurtle toward the end of this pregnancy. For little Emma, five will be a big age, a year to remember. For myself 31 years old will be a year to remember. When my daughter is born my life will forever be changed for the better and I would be wise to remember the year it happened.

So pregnant ladies, take a deep breath, be aware - what are you doing, what choices are you making, what is good and should stay the same? What needs changing? We all have things. But now it isn't just you or you and your spouse, it's you and a little one who is going to start his or her first day on earth in a few short weeks and we as their parents must be prepared. Prepared to love unconditionally, prepared to have much patience and endurance, prepared to call upon God and allow others to help us. Prepared to give and give and give until you reach that point where you didn't know you had more in you but you do! Let us each stop and look around us, where we are at, where we are heading, and remember that we are bringing a little one along with us. Let's make it inviting, loving, encouraging, nurturing, kind, and be excited for this blessing of a babe that soon you, I will get to hold in our arms and take home to raise, love and cherish. These are exciting times we are in! Embrace it!

Books to fill her mind and heart with good things

A birthday dress for the prettiest 5 year old!

Keep looking for the healing and sunshine!
Love, your friend,
Laura