30 Weeks! Let the countdown begin!

I'm currently 30 weeks pregnant and getting excited for the home stretch. I remember getting to the last 10 weeks with Greta and feeling like every week was this huge chip away at the remaining time.

30 weeks pregnant means that there are 7 weeks left in the schoolyear. This is both exciting and terrifying. I'm looking forward to the last 7 weeks going by quickly (please! please!), and hoping that the last three weeks of pregnancy will go by nice and slowly (so long as I'm still relatively comfortable and healthy, of course). I fully expect Piccola to wait until her due date to arrive, although I must admit I am hoping that she doesn't come much later than that. I am really, really hoping that she doesn't arrive on July 4. July 4 was the day that we found out we were pregnant with Sparkie last year. I'm sure, if it happens, with time it will simply become Piccola's birthday and I won't have such strong associations with Sparkie. But I'd just rather not go there at all. I'm just really hoping that Piccola makes her appearance before that anniversary.

In pregnancy news, I'm feeling her kicking around quite often now. These are the days when I'm actually glad that I have an anterior placenta -- Piccola's kicks are consistent, but still mostly pleasant and fun. It is rare that she delivers a jab that is truly painful -- and usually when it happens it is to the cervix, which makes sense because it is (thankfully) not covered with placenta.

I still sometimes have to stop myself and recognize that we are going to have a baby in 10 weeks or so. A baby. What should I be doing? How should I be preparing? I feel weirdly even more clueless than with my first baby. I think it's because, ultimately, a newborn doesn't need all that much and can't get into all that much trouble. The rest of us adults can adapt to the newborn and we can decide as we go how we're going to do that. But a newborn entering a home with a toddler? That's a whole different picture. I have no clue what that's going to look like to get Greta on board with our adaptations.

Today I took Greta out for a walk and she was very upset that I made her ride in the stroller when she wouldn't listen to directions about holding my hand. I thought about how grateful I am that we have a double stroller so that I can have both kids buckled in at the same time. I also thought about how scary it would be if the single stroller had had a little baby in it when I was reaching for my disobedient toddler.

The biggest worries that I have right now are around whether to speed up or slow down Greta's transition from babyhood to childhood. She's in a crib right now -- do we transition her to a toddler bed before or after the baby's arrival? She's in diapers -- do we potty train now or after the baby arrives. With 10 weeks left to go, I feel like we have to fish or cut bait. Either we can make these transitions now and have enough time that she might not regress when the baby arrives, or we have to wait until after we've settled in with our new arrival. I feel like waiting until the last couple weeks of pregnancy to make big changes is a bad idea. It's just darn awkward timing.

And then, besides the baby's arrival, there's the worries about the actual birth. At this point, I'm sort of in la-la land about that. I'm just kind of assuming things will go however they're going to go and there's not much I can do to prepare. Which is probably mostly accurate. But I'd like to be somewhat prepared. Maybe have a few breathing techniques in my back pocket. Certainly have a bag packed. Perhaps have purchased some supplies for taking care of myself during and after labor.

There's a lot to do in these last 10 weeks. It's hard to focus on anything except surviving the last 7 weeks of school, though. Head down, power through.