The Gift of Waiting

Before Ellis arrived, I started this blog post...but never finished it.

My goal is to get his birth story all typed up and posted in the next few days, but before I can mentally go there, I want to finish this post. 

Here goes:

The way my maternity leave worked this time around, I was able to be home for my spring break plus another week before my scheduled c-section.

It was such a gift to be able to take time off beforehand because with Harry I worked up until the day he was born.

So here we are, waiting. I'm mostly hanging out with Harry while Josh works, but we also plan on having plenty of time just the three of us before brother makes us a family of four.

I'm so thankful for a pause to wait. A break from my normal routine of teaching and mothering...to just enjoy my firstborn. Time to wait and rest (and nest). I know that once Ellis arrives, life will never be the same, and it's a change that we've longed for, for a long time now. All of this is so good and I am so thankful...and yet I find myself holding tightly to these days before. Wanting to savor and cherish them because I know that I'll never get them back.

And because I haven't posted much of his nursery on the blog (mainly because we just got it put together in the past few days ;) here are some pics of how we've personalized the nursery to be Ellis' new room.

This is how I initially "styled" his shelves and the wall above his crib:

And here are some updates I made...

We received this adorable little garland (after he was born) from my cousin Catherine...and I LOVE how it adds to the wall above his changing table. We will enjoy it every time I change his diaper! 

Here is the initial wall above his crib...

And here it is now :)