All Akimbo: Mama Mia!

By Kim Blakely, mama to Mojo

You know how, when you have a precious new baby, you just can’t wait to have him or her call you ‘Mama’? And how when he or she finally does say it, you swoon, falling in love with him or her again, 1,000 times over?

Please tell me I’m not the only one who – at least occasionally – wishes that same child who melted my heart would forget how to utter that term of endearment, at least for a few minutes.

Because I might have had a few such occasions this weekend. Don’t get me wrong – overall, the weekend was fabulous. I couldn’t have dreamed up better weather, and we finally got around to doing something about the nursery – but more about that shortly.

I am huge and unwieldy, and I have some sort of hip problem (meaning a horrid pain shoots through it at random moments) as well as an annoying months-long bout of insomnia, and unfortunately I get tired a lot quicker than I do when I’m not huge and … well, all those things I just mentioned.

Mojo wasn’t feeling well Friday night and Saturday, so he was doubly interested in having me at his beck and call, and I tried to stick by him as much as possible, but … I don’t know. I guess I’m nesting, and I desperately wanted a moment’s peace here and there, just to think through my grand plans.

I raked four bags of leaves out of our front flower beds, pulled some weeds and trimmed the monkey grass, helped move things out of the guest room (now almost a full-fledged nursery), hung some pictures in other parts of the house, etc. And, whew, I was tuckered out before, during and most especially after.

BUT my baby bird still apparently needed his “Mama!!” every few minutes to do things, like help him find his gorilla or look for a game piece or, I don’t know, hand him the cup of milk that was two inches from his little fingers.

While I was taking care of things in other parts of the house, my husband was finally painting the nursery and when he was done he moved the big pieces of furniture in/out/around under my careful direction, all of which have lowered my stress about getting ready for baby considerably. (Frankly, being at home all day where I could see all the things that needed to be done and knowing that most of them were things I wasn’t supposed to do myself had resulted in a walloping dose of frustration. It wasn’t that my husband was refusing to do it or anything dastardly like that. He was just resolute about waiting until he had a whole weekend to paint, and, really, do you know how rare those kinds of weekends are?! Grrrrr. All better now.)

The walls are painted – a shade of yellow called “whisper,” shhhhhh – and the crib is in place. That’s about all, but the room is a far cry closer to what it supposed to be than it was this time last week, for sure.

I was worried that Mojo would be upset when we took the crib from his room – it converts to a toddler bed, and although it served solely as a holding spot for his 100s of stuffed animals because he has slept in a double bed for forever, I wasn’t sure how he would feel about watching it go away.

I had even considered that maybe all the hubbub about the new bub might be the reason for all the Mama-ing I heard over the weekend.

But, when all was said and done, and I was ready to collapse after all the hard work, what did the Baby Bird have to say? He said, one more time, “Mama!!!” Then he said, “Can I play in the baby’s room?”

I squawked a relieved, “Of course you can!” Then I plopped down on the floor next to him for a little rest.