Macaroons (my favorite) from Vanille Pastisseries in Chicago, Illinois.
This weekend my good friend Cassie hosted my first baby shower. There were gifts, music, a delicious lunch, and beautiful sweet treats from a Vanille Patisserie in Chicago (where Cassie is from). Needless to say, between the awesome friends, adorable baby gifts, and macaroons... I feel sufficiently 'showered.'
Later that day, Cassie helped me unpack the new baby gear into her niece's future room - Cassie is an only child so as a best friend of mine I've already let her know she has no choice in being an aunt to our daughter. The nursery is still pretty bare even with the crib and rocking chair assembled (I promise to post some photos once it's closer to completion) but the colorful baby items sure did start to fill things up.
As I wrote my thank you notes to all the kick-ass girl friends I'm so blessed to have in my life, I was overwhelmed with emotion. No, I wasn't crying... I was joyful. Cassie had said to me earlier that weekend that I was, "such an adult" referring to our newly purchased home and baby on the way. I stopped writing for just a moment and replayed the conversation in my head.
"I can't believe how much has changed in the last couple years," I said. "I'm extremely grateful, but of course it can be overwhelming at times." Something I said with emphasis at precisely the moment of unpacking a gigantic box of newborn diapers. Change is right! Literally, as in changing diapers for the next... how long until she's out of diapers?
To my contrary, Cassie is living the single 'Sex and the City' lifestyle (as I like to call it) in downtown Chicago where she works for a trendy new startup company. She's got her own apartment in the ever popular Lincoln Park neighborhood that she shares only with her pup Hank. And while I'm busy here unpacking diapers, she's busy... well, not unpacking diapers.
That said, I'm confident in saying that neither of us would ever trade places - not that we don't admire one another's lives. It's just that, the grass is not greener. The grass is grass and everyone's responsible for watering their own damn lawn. I know Cassie would like to someday have a house and start a family of her own just as I think fondly of my time as the single one living in the city. But life is about embracing the season we're in at this current moment... because those moments will pass before we know it.
A few weekends ago our pastor shared a message about being in the present and about how the only thing we have for certain in this life is right now. Not tomorrow, not yesterday, but right this very moment. So often I catch myself planning for tomorrow - it's just part of who I am. I constantly struggle to make sure I'm 100% present where I'm physically standing at any given time. I've been warned that as soon as our daughter arrives, the time will fly as it never has before.
With these beautiful baby gifts rolling in and the nursery slowing coming together, it's hard not to live for the moment she arrives. But I keep reminding myself to enjoy my bump and the movements within, just as I'm sure I'll need to remind myself to enjoy her in her infant form because before we know it, she'll be toddling around our house leaving a trail of whatever snack she's eating at the time.
I finished my thank you notes and placed them in the mailbox on our porch to be sent. And then I smiled. "Yes, much has changed in the last couple of years," I thought to myself. And just then, she kicked me.
