This Is The End (?)

"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."
-T. S. Eliot

"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. "
-Winston Churchill

"Wisdom begins at the end."
-Daniel Webster

"The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end."
-Leon Trotsky

"The end of labor is to gain leisure."
-Aristotle

Well, we're now past the due date, technically. Spencer was originally due on the 10th and my ultrasound in December determined he was due on the 5th. SO, any day now.

In the meantime, I'm trying to find some kind of peace during this waiting.

I went to two libraries yesterday - not too many years ago they were a place of solace and distraction for me - I'd walk down the aisles in Fiction and just look at book titles for something to stick out. I'd spend an average of an hour on any given visit. Yesterday was frustrating cause I couldn't find a book I wanted to take out and the ceilings were low and there was no real space to get around. The Borders and Barnes & Nobles of this world have effectively replaced the enjoyment of libraries - these stores have EVERYTHING you want and 90-100% of the time it's in stock and their magazine selections are out of control great, and you can buy CDs and DVDs, AND get a coffee, and noone really cares if you have your cell phone. AND you can get around in there. The Borders near me is spacious and mostly organized. I've been going there for 5 years. It's my library now and I have to go today and get another book by Augusten Burroughs. I started trying to read Wait Until Spring by John Fante, but it wasn't stimulating enough to keep me going.
I am ashamed to some degree. We have so many books in this house, my son will never need to go to a library or anywhere once he's old enough to read mature material. We have like every major work!
How many families have a gazillion books now because of Borders and Barnes & Noble? Ikea must be making a killing on FLÄRKE bookshelves.

As I mentioned, reading last night was not stimulating...so at 1230am I decided it was time to try sleeping. What a dismal failure. I laid there awake for almost 2 hours thinking about everything from teaching my son how to use the toilet, to burglars, to whether or not I should turn the light on and read something else, to how loud our dog is when he sleeps (he makes lip smacking noises like a person. it's so weird), to 'what is that crampy feeling in my back and is this the beginning of labor?', to 'what is that light burning/stirring in my belly...is that heartburn trying to come back?', and so on. At some point I managed to start staring at the faint red glow from the light switch on the opposite wall and focus on it enough to fall asleep. Or maybe I drempt that.

At 6am I was awakened not by heartburn (last night's trip to Dairyland for soft-serve must have been the cure-all), but by my bladder. Nothing unusual there, but then upon returning to bed, I was awake again and sat up for 45 minutes fuming because Guy was at his usual morning post at the computer and I wanted my feet rubbed or anything to make me go back to sleep. At 7 he came in and comforted me and listened to me whine, and when the thought of IHOP began prancing through my head he offered to make chocolate chip pancakes...or massage my feet. "You can make your own pancakes you know", he said, entirely aware of my indecisive nature. So he massaged them for like 20 minutes, at which point I became starving and had to make bacon and eggs.
Yummy. Eggs are my savior. It's like the one food I will not leave a speck of on my plate. To me a wasted drop of egg is like lost gold. Throughout this pregnancy I have leaned on eggs like a lifesaver. Almost every morning it's eggs. My son is going to BE an egg. So I finished eating, and suddenly, like a bear come out of hibernation only to snack, I was dead tired. Back up to bed to try a little light reading (Q Magazine, not that boring book), Guy gave me a kiss goodbye and went off to work, and I passed out. Should I have eaten eggs at 1am instead of reading perhaps?

Guy suggested I need some kind of physical exercise to wear me out so I'll go to sleep easier...As if walking around part of the day with a 20lb belly biologically attached isn't tiring enough. I'll get right out and try a Tae Bo class.

It's now 1230pm, close to 80 degrees out and sunny, and there's a chaise lounge outside with my name on it. Time to go to Borders, pick up that book and find my place in the sun until labor or dinnertime.