My Third Child

What's that? You thought I fell off the edge of the blogosphere and gave up all hope of keeping up in cyberspace??

No, not quite yet. It's just that in the last month, every spare moment of my life has been consumed by my third child.

Yes, my third child. You didn't hear? I finally got a girl! And let me tell you, she is demanding of my time and attention.

By now, you have probably done the math and realized that my little Jude is only five months old and it's kinda physically impossible to have had another child without it being left on my doorstep or picked from a basket of reeds outside of Pharaoh's palace. Okay, so maybe it's not a real child. Maybe it's kind of sort of a not-quite-finished house. 

(Hey Matt, how do you like that? I've decided our house is female!)

But let me tell you, this house might as well be another pregnancy--another baby--the way it is affecting my life. 

Let's pretend for a moment that you already know how incredibly grateful I am for the opportunity to build a new house, and how blessed I know my family is at this point in life. Pretend you already know that I never even dreamed I'd have the chance to design my own house before my kids were all grown and before we'd spent decades saving and planning. Pretend you already know all that, and then maybe this post will seem more like a funny comparison than a list of gripes. Got the right mindset? Alright, here we go...

HOW BUILDING A HOUSE IS LIKE HAVING A BABY:

- It keeps me up at night. With anxiety over choices and impatient anticipation. I can't tell you how many dreams I've had about cabinet hardware and light fixtures.

- It is able to give me both extreme joy and heartbreaking disappointment on a daily basis. I experience inexplicable delight when the house develops something new, even if it's something as small as seeing the hardware installed on the cabinets. I could say the same for my sons and the silly joy I felt when I saw them consciously reach for a toy for the first time. 

But at the same time, I experience such disappointment when I go visit the house and see that nothing has been accomplished that whole day or weekend. Or see that the contractors did something wrong and it's going to be a longer process to fix it

- It has taken about nine months to create, starting with conception of the floor plan.

- It gives me false alarms with the due date. There's about a month-long time frame in which you can expect completion, but you never know exactly when it will be ready.

- It makes my back ache and my brain tired. From standing in it for hours on end with the designer, trying to decide the exact shade of light gray that looks best with the afternoon sun and contrasts just right with the warmth of the wood floor, then coming back the next day to do it all over again because I swear the paint colors changed when I brought the samples back to my apartment. Here are three of the critically different colors we considered.

- I miss it when I don't see it every day.  I'm drawn to it. I want to be there to watch it "grow" every day. It makes me feel homesick for a house I've never lived in yet!

- It makes my older child jealous for my attention. I don't think I need to explain this one.

- It makes it impossible to completely enjoy a movie or devote my full attention to it. Matt and I were watching the seventh Harry Potter (part 1) a few weeks ago, when he gave a big sigh and said, "I hate that in this scene all I can focus on is that stupid light fixture on Harry's ceiling!" That's how prevalent light fixtures are in my husband's mind, so imagine my level of enjoyment watching any show that features shelves, stairs, door handles, faucets, windows, towel rods, or paint colors anywhere in the background. Suh-hucks!

- It takes time away from other important parts of life, like spending quality time with my spouse, cleaning, cooking healthy food, exercising. Sound like a baby?

- It causes me to have more dirty laundry. Every single time we go to the house, Josh takes his toy construction trucks and cannon balls into the dirt that currently fills up our yard. That's where he plays while I try to get stuff done. Unless it's raining, in which case he comes inside and literally rolls around in the sawdust that covers our floors. Aside from that, there is white stuff all over the drywall still, so every time one of us leans against a wall, we get house on us. 

- It makes me shop all over town at least twice a week.  I often go to several different stores to find Josh's vanilla almond milk (he's allergic to cow's milk) or just the right net for catching insects, because I love him and want him to have the best things I can offer. Much like that, this house sends me all over town looking for the exact right floor tile or better paint samples, only to reject them upon presentation and send me out to try again. If I took all the tiles we have seriously considered for the master bath and laid them next to each other on the ground, it would probably go around the world twice. This house requires constant shopping, like a hungry child that keeps eating all the fruit snacks and asking for more.

- I get upset when people don't give it the attention it deserves. When I go to the house in the middle of a weekday and see nobody there working, I feel toward the contractors how I would feel toward a neglectful babysitter or lazy teacher. Something like, "Why am I trusting you with my baby? You are useless!" 

With the exception of the carpenter Tim, who is always there and always doing awesome work. This is how awesome he is. Check out the cassette tapes he listens to in his boom box while working:

That's right, cassette tapes. Def Leppard and the Scorpions? That's the kind of creative energy I want put into my house!

- It costs more than you would expect, always sucking more money out of you. And just like with a baby, the fact that it's totally worth it doesn't make it much easier to bear.

- Two steps forward = one step back. Like parenting or potty training. It feels like we're trying to climb the "down" escalator...but there's a big fat security guard at the top that's not going to let us through anyway.

- It causes me to wear the same clothes at least twice a week. We are still living out of suitcases while waiting for the house to be done so we can get our stuff out of storage. Compare this to wearing the same clothes over and over after giving birth because only a few things are comfortable enough and fit you right. That is my life. Iamsosickofmyclothes.

-It makes bathroom visits interesting. Pulling up to the house is like a trigger for Josh to say he needs to go to the bathroom. Of course, with no running water, our house doesn't have one. Consequently, he has marked his territory in the dirt enough times to scare away all the wild animals for the rest of the season. 

And let's not forget about the lovely port-a-potty we have had sitting in our front yard for the last six months. Josh especially likes to use that, and to make me stand there with the door propped open while he does his business so I can scare away the flies and not let him fall in. Good times.

- It adds a new level of PRESSURE to my life. Let me explain. 

When the baby is your responsibility to develop en utero, you blame yourself for every little thing that could be wrong with the baby when it comes out and as it grows. (Did I eat too much tuna in the second trimester? Are those my psychotic genes coming through? Did I curse my child with the same flat feet I have? Maybe I shouldn't have exercised so much/so little and he'd be a better weight? If only I could have pushed through labor, that epidural may have caused such and such....) It's the same with a house (only on a much much less serious scale because it's not an actual human being). Everything I choose I know I'm going to have to live with, and if it doesn't turn out right or I don't like it, I can only blame myself. Every single bloomin' detail. PRESSURE!

- And at the end of the day after all the hard work is done, I thank the Lord for the opportunity to deal with these minor inconveniences because they are a part of creating beautiful things. It's worth every drop of sweat and every dollar of gas and every minute of attention.