Week #37

Where we are this week:
Babies come to term anywhere between 38 and 42 weeks--your 40-week due date simply marks the midpoint of this period. By the end of this week, your little one will be officially "on time" whenever he makes her entry into the world.

It's hard to believe we're getting so close! Reality set in when one of my friends, due a day before us, had her baby two days ago. Hello!!! This weekend we're going to try and get the nursery as finished as possible. (For anyone having a baby, I can't stress enough ordering a crib EARLY. We ordered ours three months ago only to find out that it's back ordered again till the end of March-1st of April!!!) We'll figure something out... More than anything, I think we're trying to get mentally prepared for the new change that is about to take place in our lives. (not that you can really prepare for that sort of thing...) It's been really hard for me to imagine having my life revolve around a little baby. On another blog (http://theologica.blogspot.com/), Chris found a quote from Martin Luther that was very challenging to me...

Now observe that when that clever harlot, our natural reason . . . , takes a look at married life, she turns up her nose and says, “Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores. . . ?” [LW 45:39]

What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels. It says, O God, because I am certain that thou hast created me as a man and hast from my body begotten this child, I also know for a certainty that it meets with thy perfect pleasure. I confess to thee that I am not worthy to rock the little babe or wash its diapers, or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother. How is it that I, without any merit, have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even more insignificant and despised. Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight. . . . God, with all his angels and creatures is smiling—not because the father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith.[LW 45:39-40]