Bigger Picture Moment: The Swelling

It's that time of pregnancy where we can no longer sit around idly and wait for the baby to make himself known.  While I would like to sit idly, it makes me feel itchy and nervous that we can't possibly finish the things that need to be accomplished before his birth and what if we don't find a vehicle that fits three car seats and he has to ride separately?!?! 

There are lists to be checked off.  Preparations to be made.  Transitions to be settled into.

Transition number one, is the combining of the girls' bedrooms.  And oh my goodness, putting two rooms of stuff into one room is mad-making.  We've pared and sorted and tossed and stored a giant load of kidstuff, all in the hopes that Mia and Lauren will adore being roommates for the foreseeable future. 

Not like they really have a choice -- it's this or...this.

The room-move has been a few weeks in the making.  I'd haul myself up and down from organizing a few things only to realize that the girls had unpacked my carefully purged toys from bags in the living room.  But slowly, progress was made.  One day, all of their clothes finally fit into a single closet.  The next, the contents of their dressers were successfully merged.  Soon, Mia wanted to pull her mattress into Lauren's room. 

Before we knew it, Mia's old room was nearly empty.

Empty of her.

This was the room she's filled with her presence since she was a few months old.  This was where she learned how to sing herself to sleep.  Where she first fell out of bed.  Where she lay breathing heavily each night, bathed in the glow of her closet's nightlight.

And this wasn't something I was expecting to feel.  It should be exciting!  We're making room for a sweet baby boy!  But...in order to do that, it feels like we're shoving Mia's babyhood to one side, relegating it to memory alone. 

Walking by her open, nearly empty bedroom each night had become an exercise in emotional-steeling.  Deep breaths would carry me past the doorframe, past the moonlight streaming through window blinds that don't need to be closed against sunset or sunrise anymore.  To step inside that quiet room was out of the question; only in daylight, with Mia still there playing on the floor, could I see that it was still the same room. 

Now, though, the rooms are fully switched.  Bedframes and dressers and shelves and toys and clothes.  All in one (crowded) place.

After all the swelling of emotion I weathered when I saw the other bedroom being emptied to make way for a crib and rocking chair, I didn't believe a second, positive swell of emotion would be forthcoming.

But on the first night of the completed transformation, another swelling did, indeed, begin: here is the room my girls will share.  Here are their beds, side by side.  Here their breathing will mingle as they dream.  This room will hear their secrets and shelter their growth.

And it was good.

I won't promise to avoid further emotional meltdowns for the next three months (because holy stinking heck -- only three months!), but at least I know now --

The swelling isn't so bad.  It carries you through to somewhere new and hopeful.

We're seeing the Bigger Picture through simple moments -- moments that force us to stop and take notice of the ways our worlds are important, meaningful, and beautiful. Please join here today! Grab the button, link up and then go forth to encourage the two people before you as they walk this journey of intentional living.