Michael is sitting in his crib, playing with a wooden puzzle. Everyone remember my quest for wooden blocks or wooden toys at all before Michael’s birthday? Remember? Yeah…that’s the best that I could come up with…a wooden puzzle. He loves it. Must feel good on his teeth and gums.

His humidifier is running and I know it’s working. That kid is spending a lot of time playing in his crib because of the air in the room. It helps him to breathe. And of course, I have Elfie and asthma on my brain. I’d like to get some of my questions answered and am actually looking forward to the visit to the children’s hospital next week. Maybe they can shed some light on the lungs of the little guy.

Which, of course, makes me think of the shot of steroids the nurses jammed into my hip before I was sent, rushing, to Big City the night before he was born. It was supposed to speed up his lung development. And what I’m learning now is that nothing is separate. Everything is touched not only by his prematurity, but also by that night. “Everything is governed by the rule of one thing leads to another” Ani sings in my head.

I am choosing to focus on this, among other things, this morning because there are big happenings going on around me and maybe even within me.

I woke up at four o’clock this morning to someone whispering in my ear. Or rather, to several someones whispering in my ear. All at once, very hurried, very furtive. I told them that it wasn’t a good time, I was trying to sleep and furthermore, the whole family was trying to sleep. It woke Rock up, too, and Michael and Rock fetched Michael to feed him and put him back to sleep. I laid there in my bed, too sleepy to consciously ask for them to slow down or repeat themselves, too tired to make the effort.

Then I was hit with a panic most definitely not my own.

Then I went back to sleep and I dreamed and dreamed and dreamed.

I woke up more confused than ever, convinced only that big things were going on and even bigger things were about to transpire.

I haven’t been alone since four o’clock this morning. One gentleman in particular sits next to me, his old man hat propped on top of his head, his energy and demeanour very calm and very serious this morning. The others are here, too, but I am blocking them. For the moment, anyway.

In the few quiet moments I’ve had this morning, they have been all over me like white on rice, talking all at once in a hurried, urgent manner. I have taken a few minutes here and there to ask some very specific questions and have received some answers. But they are only pieces of puzzle right now…nothing fits together, yet. I’ll learn more tonight. I’ll have to wait and see.
They will have to wait, too, as I spend today grounding myself over and over again. Blocking and rebounding until the time has come to let it through. I won’t lie and say that I’m not a bit nervous about what will happen when the time comes. I can feel it now, as I type, trying to push it’s way through so I can only imagine the intensity that waits for me tonight.

It’s going to be a long night, that much I am sure of.

But it will be so worth it. I am even more sure of that.

So, today…this Friday, March 14, 2008. One week until my Birthday! Hooray! Today is Emma’s friend’s birthday and ironically, I had a post brewing in my head last night about Emma’s friend and the party this afternoon. I may still come back to it….

And while Emma is bringing down the house in first grade style, I will be shopping at Value Village with Kate. I’m looking forward to that. Kate and I don’t do the shopping thing too often, but right now she’s hell bent on getting a new skirt, top and a new dress. And I’m hoping to sneak a few minutes in the fitting room myself…and maybe I’ll end up with a new pair of pants. You never know! Stranger things have happened!

And then, maybe dinner out, maybe dinner at home.

And then, the weekend and the end to March Break. That was another post I had brewing away in me last night, too. About how I wish I could give my kids more than they have on weeks like this one. How I sometimes feel like I was tricked into moving back to this area, with the promise of more contact with family, more baby sitting, more adventures for the kids. And instead, I am trapped (and they, too, are trapped) in this house, with very little going on, dreaming a bit about my time living in Big City when at the very least, we could have walked some place.

But that post will have to “wait and see”, too.

That’s today…a wait and see.

Because it’s surely coming.