10 weeks until the baby comes.

that's only 10 mondays.
and only 2 of those weeks are regular-class-schedule weeks (7 more teaching days til summer!)

so i'm almost there, almost there. this is the part of the semester where i start doing that sort of math--how many classes again? lecture days? homeworks? papers? last minute random meetings?

this has been a different sort of semester. easier in a lot of ways--i'm teaching two creative writing classes, which i love! and my one of my freshmen comp  classes is half the size of a typical comp class. my grading is way way down from most semesters (80 papers each essay turned in the first semester, 60 last semester, 35 this semester).

but harder too. zu is much more to keep up with, now in her active toddler days, and i'm tired and big and its hard to do what i used to do, physically.  bryan said i've been doing really well; that i've actually been much less reliant on him and needy than i was when i was pregnant with zu. i think i'm just capable of more than i was when i was first pregnant; motherhood toughens you up. i have a theory that with each child, you become more superhumanly able to take care of things.

a few weeks ago i went to the park with bryan, his friend kyle, and zu. bryan and kyle went jogging while i stayed at the insanely-busy playground with zu--it was a randomly warm day, after weeks of rain, so there was a swarm of children around. i was wearing a casual dress and tights because my only pair of jeans i can fit into were dirty because i'd thrown up on them that morning right before heading out the door to church. i was awkwardly trying to juggle our oversized diaper bag and the umbrella stroller and keep up with zu when i ran into a mom from our homegroup. she's a little older than me and has three kids, but her youngest is just maybe half a year older than zu. she jumped right in and started helping me, pushing the stroller and keeping an eye on zu too, all while watching her own three children, carrying their diaper backpack (yes, i immediately switched from our diaper bag to bryan's old school backpack after this experience), and having a conversation with me. i had to stop and tell her that i was just amazed, completely amazed at how awesome she is. she's modest, so she said its just something that you get used to.

i hope that happens for me. because i think that being a mom is pretty much the hardest job on earth. i love being a mom, but it is physically and emotionally hard and if you don't think so then you probably aren't a mom or you must have a really boring and not very active kid.

sometimes just the fact that i love her so much is hard. last week, when she woke up, i noticed her belly button has a little hernia that wasn't there the night before. she has a little hernia already on her belly but what could it mean for another one to pop up over night, in another spot? i woke bryan up and informed him we were going to the emergency room, NOW, and i put on everyone's shoes while panicked and crying. bryan calmed me down enough to get me to call the pediatrician first though, and the pediatrician said it was nothing at all to worry about and she'd check it out when zu comes in for her next appointment in may. it took me a long time to calm down from that though, still all weepy and upset--what if it had been something? and i just love her so much, i can't have it ever be something.

so i need some of that 3-kid-mom thick skin. how do they do things? are their lives as busy as mine? i'm sure they're busier. how do they do things?? i'm on the verge of writing fan letters to a few 3-kid-moms that i know.

i trust that God will make me capable; and today's worries are sufficient for today.

its just that today has been a long day, and i'm tired, and big, and have so much to grade, plan, finish, prepare, for school and then for little june. maybe things will look more possible in the morning.