Piling Up Like Snow

I haven't posted in awhile. I haven't really wanted to write about the things I've been thinking. I find this time of year hard. I miss my family on the East coast - we've no family here in Ottawa, it's just us.  I've still a lot of emotional baggage about #2's birth 6 years ago and the ensuing flurry of CHEO appts in the lead-up to his first Christmas - he always has a regular check-up at CHEO around his birthday and I still experience wide-awake anxiety the night before. I'm feeling incredibly overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I need/want to get done before this baby is born. I'm struggling a bit to get into the Christmas spirit already. And I admit that I'm in knots about my 18wk midwife appt and ultrasound next week - I'm really afraid that they will find something 'wrong' and I'll go through the months of worrying before birth that I went through with #2.

Oh, and I'm tired, get up to pee every 20 minutes at night, and have been sleeping like crud. Not to mention the sneezing that just won't stop.

All of that's pretty negative and depressing and, so, I haven't really wanted to write about it. Or talk about it. And have been trying my best not to even think about it. The problem is, however, that pushing anxieties and sadness away like that just seems to squish them up into big insurmountable snowbanks of worry and concern - making it that much harder to put one foot in front of the other, and making me wonder when it will all come crashing down on me.

I've been trying to find a few happy things to focus on each day. At the Toy Parade, I could see from the wonder on my 6yr old's face that he still believes in Santa, no matter what his brother and friends have told him. Yesterday I assembled our new dining table while listening to Stuart McLean's Christmas specials and watched my 7yr old eat 4(!) bowls of homemade macaroni and cheese while sitting at it. The day before, my 7yr old wanted to hold my hand on the walk to school and when the first thing out of their mouths when they got home from school was, "Yum! Something smells GOOD!" Today? My 6yr old wouldn't let me go from the schoolyard without a big kiss on the cheek - as I was walking out of the yard, I heard him holler, "I love you, Mommy!"

I've been making a concerted effort to purge excess stuff from the house. Each week a big bag or box of stuff is taken up the road to St. Vincent de Paul's. I've been taking a half hour each night to lie in bed and just feel the baby move around. I've been doing a new type of Advent activity with the boys for the lead-up to Christmas - we've had a few last-minute changes, but it's been fun. I'm getting ready today to put up our tree.

Each of these is just a small thing by itself, but I think together they can create a giant snowbank of their own.