Advent Begins

It's the first week of Advent and already, I'm impatient.

Coming two months early to start, I guess I always have been. It doesn't explain why I'm always late everywhere, but it does shed light on my inability to diet, budget or maintain a cleaning routine. It also explains why I struggle beyond the easy level with Rock Band, I keep jumping the count.

Like everyone, I am my own worst enemy. Original sin just messes with every gift we have if we let it and I do all too often. Delayed gratification is something I struggle with; I like the immediate hit of a comment on a blog and thus often surrender the better prize of a crafted publishable piece. I eat the pie when it's served. I don't take pitches and I panic in the pocket in touch football. The present that is perfect at first glance is too much to not purchase. I don't like looking, I like finding. God knows this, so He placed my future husband in front of me first day of college.

This year's prayer theme was "Wait on the Lord." Essentially, my husband and I have thrown this line out at each other all year long whenever things got hard. Sometimes it has meant serve, other times it has meant patience and most infuriating, sometimes it has meant both. Advent is the Church's "Wait on the Lord" instruction to all of us.

You'd think a year of meditating on this bit of wisdom would have paid off, but I still give hints about presents if they're really cool gifts. I used to do my shopping last minute so I wouldn't mess up and tell people what I'm giving. My current solution had been to tell SOMEONE what I got someone else but even that makes it harder for me not to give more hints to the recipient. It comes down to the fact that I don't like secrets and really stink at surprises. I've always found out what each kid I was having was. I always jumped up and down the last week hoping the time would be sooner than the induced date scheduled. Again, God knows how to work around my flaws and never has indulged my impatience on this point.

Even the one kid who was premature made me sit for a week and the other one that needed an emergency c-section made my husband wait in a room alone to pray while the doctors got ready. I had to wait to find out she'd been born, I didn't feel a thing and she didn't cry at first. Then we got the shock of great joy and that was what we needed, seeing her face and touching her cheek. This is what Christmas is; the shock of the angels, the shock of the star, the shock of the little family in the stable being the salvation of the world; the shock of seeing the one you love completely for the first time.

Christmas is the scheduled delivery day when time will slow down, when we will look around and miss whoever is not there, and feel the day would be better, more and more wonderful if everyone were in one place. We will long for Heaven because Earth only hints with all it's wonder and beauty and bounty but does not satisfy and we really really know it.

So as of today, the all Christmas carols radio station(with the notable exception of a few banned for life tunes), is allowed. We made a list of what we hope to have happen during these next few weeks but have promised not to freak at what doesn't. I will try to "Be still and know He is there." Holding onto the infant Jesus I know will bring the strong true peace not of this world but right now, out in the fields, it's hard not to want to run straight for that star. But then I remember, "Wait on the Lord." So I'm waiting. I'm not patient, but I'm waiting.

Have a blessed Advent.

Top Ten Things Never to Say to a Pregnant Woman

Nine pregnancies means I’ve just about heard everything…so as a public service announcement to all well wishers and curious strangers, I provide the following tips to avoid a faux pas in the presence of an expectant mother.

10. "Did you plan this?" If the answer is yes…so? If the answer is no…again…so?

9. "You’re so big! I bet you’re due any day now!" First, if you’ve never seen the woman before, you have no frame of reference for size. Second, unless you’re an obgyn, guessing how far along a woman is in her gestation is a dangerous prospect…if you think due today and she’s seven months, you risk having a large hot chocolate or diet coke jammed up a nostril. Any jury of women would think you got off lightly with only a warning in such a situation.

8. Discussing/dismissing prospective mother’s birth plan…and proposing own alternative –drugs/no drugs/ at home/induction…whatever the substitution/alteration…it’s not what the doctor and patient ordered. This is like going to a restaurant, up to your girlfriend’s table and telling the waitress…I know she ordered Caesar salad and the pasta with cream sauce but she really would like ice tea, some wedding soup and the chicken pesto bowtie pasta. Then telling the girlfriend, “Trust me, you’ll love it.”

7. You’re carrying high/low, sideways, it must be…boy/girl. This changes daily and even by the moment and is also dependent upon wardrobe choices for the day, and gender, well, I’ve taken to saying, “If I didn’t know, I’d say there’s a 50% chance you’re correct.” I’ve had total strangers assure me that the ultrasound was wrong based on their analysis of how my tummy was aligned at the moment. My moral compass forbids me from then asking them, “Want to bet?”

6. Are you going to have any more? Family size decisions involve only two people. ‘Nuff said.

5. Offering to or actually patting the belly before receiving clearance or after clearance has been denied. Big No No.

4. Are you sure there aren’t twins in there? Similar to number 7 and number 9, there is no way that this comment can be considered a compliment.

3. Relating delivery horror stories…72 hours, no epidural worked…husband stuck at job, broken car, had to be delivered by neighbor’s yard man…these bring no comfort to the awaiting pregnant lady. They are battle stories…that create or revive memories of labor that rival post traumatic stress syndrome.

2. Labor inducement tricks…eat olive/mushroom pizza at this restaurant…try jalepenoes in brownies…these things work as well as guess the baby by how she’s shaped. They also usually involve gross combinations that can make even the steeliest of stomachs ill.

1. "Haven’t had that baby yet? Stick a Fork in You, You’re done…" Trust me, the woman 38 weeks pregnant wants to be done…she’d love to be delivering…when she is, you won’t see her…she’ll be at the hospital unless the yardman had to take over because her husband’s stuck at work.

So…what do you say? "Congratulations, how wonderful! When are you due? How are you feeling? And Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?" Then, if the gestator wishes, who knows, she might even let you feel the baby kick.

Hopefully, this post will save grace, face, and keep all those women suffering through the summer gestating, from stuffing soda/straw up stranger's nose incident free. This has been a public service announcement. We now return you to your regularly scheduled humor blog content.