A pregnant pause

Last week, my girlfriend Christina and her husband Joe were visiting from London for the weekend to attend her brother's wedding. For the past few years, Joe has been moving around the world (literally) with his company, so I don't get to see much of her. They lived in Indonesia for a few years, and are now in the UK. They (and I) are hoping that after a few more years abroad, they'll be able to settle in to a permanent position in the states. I should point out, they don't have any kids (yet.)


Matthew & I went to see them at their hotel, which is right next to a cute little shopping center, so we figured we'd walk around a bit. Christina knows that I'm expecting a baby girl in the fall, so she gave me a Carter's gift card and figured we'd hit the store while I was there. So the four of us headed out, with Matthew in the stroller. No sooner did we enter the store than Matthew pointed to one of the speakers in the ceiling and declared "music up, dance!" (Meaning, the music is coming from up there, and I have to dance!") I resisted at first, but I had brought the umbrella stroller, which means he could break out pretty easily. And when you need to dance, well, you need to dance. So I let him out of the stroller and he did start dancing right away, which of course progressed into running around the store like a crazy person, redesigning the front windows, wreaking general havoc.

I was grateful for the two extra sets of eyes (and hands) on Matthew so I could go about my shopping. Buying girl clothes is just too easy!! As my pile grew, I could see that Christina and Joe grew more exhausted trying to keep up with Matthew. They were great with him - but you could just see the look on their faces of "thank goodness his mother is taking him home with her!" They never complained, never made the "wow, you have your hands full," comment that I HATE to get. But you could see it in their eyes... by the end of the day, they were pooped and so happy he was going home. He wasn't being bad - he was just being Matthew.

I remember those conversations between David and I after spending the day with one of our nieces. I remember saying "this is SO much work," or even one time, after a particularly challenging day (I will be kind and not mention whether it was my niece or his), "why do people do this?!?" We waited more than four years after getting married before we got pregnant, and I've always been glad that we did. I think it gave us a chance to really enjoy it being just the two of us for a while, and appreciate (and handle) the changes that having a baby brought to our lives.

So I don't think Matthew has caused them to run out and seek permanent birth control methods, but I don't think they're in any rush to have a baby any time soon. Or more specifically, no rush to have a toddler any time soon ;). I think if their biological clocks were ticking, Matthew did a great job of helping them press the "snooze" button.