In the coming hours, my wife will officially be 4 days past the due date for the birth of our second child. For a variety of reasons, and because I have a fair amount of control over my summer schedule, I was able to clear most of the month of August of any major work responsibilities. As a result, I am struggling to do the work I need to do NOW so that everything is ready when we kick off an almost entirely new and different all-ages mid-week program at the start of September.
In a time when I should be taking a much needed break after a whirlwind summer of mission tripping, marathon driving back and forth to NE for my high school class reunion, deaning and then helping at camp in consecutive weeks, and finally directing Vacation Bible School... I am instead sitting around impatiently twiddling my thumbs and waiting for labor to begin. Not my labor, that is usually being put off in a very effective manner -- but the labor that will eventually produce my yet-to-be-named son.
People say patience is a virtue. I don't know what that means. Ok, I googled it and now I get it. I also now know that Patience is a song by Guns N' Roses and Virtue is a paintball company.
I have heard talk about forgiveness that makes it sound a lot like patience in my mind. They say forgiveness helps the forgiver more than it will ever affect the one being forgiven. It makes sense when you consider the turmoil you put yourself through when you store up that bitterness for years. I consider myself fortunate that I am apathetic enough to not hold that sort of grudge for any amount of time against anyone but myself.
Currently I am being incredibly impatient with the birth of my son, yet he will never suffer any ill effects from it, but it is driving me nuts. I am not sure what is worse - last week when it was well over 100 degrees all week and we couldn't really get out of the house and went stir crazy, or this week as my parents have arrived and I am having doubts that he will get here before they have to leave. If you are thinking about how selfish I am being and how much worse my wife has it, please let me know so I can do my best to hold a grudge against you - go read HER blog!
My best consolation is that the only son I currently have has been pretty hilarious lately. He is convinced the new brother will be named Brick. We have no clue why. His horse is inexplicably named Michael. We are wondering if he is maybe just a big Steve Carrell fan who names everything after characters he has played. Jack has never seen Anchorman. It is better for me if I let my imagination decide that sort of thing though.
Imagination and distraction turn out to be the great relievers and patience creators. People keep giving Sandy unwarranted and inane advice about inducing labor (though there are some suggestions that I value greatly!). Walk, eat Chinese food, eat Italian food, eat pancakes, eat stuff that gives you violent diarrhea... Half the time I think they are just writing down the last thing someone was doing before THEY went into labor as if that was what induced it.
Really, most of the absolutely redonkulous suggestions just pile onto the impatience as they enforce the reality that all we can do is wait -- As if we hadn't already heard that ad nauseum...
Bitter impatience? Clearly. Now, just like I can't think of another way to effectively end my impatient wait for labor to begin, I can't find a way to end this blog.
