baby shower

Bethany, these clothes appear to be for a ... BABY!  The look of incredulity on JB's face here is just wonderful, isn't it?  No, we are not getting married again--this shower is for our baby who is due to be born in less than five weeks now.  Our new friend Kelly (Hi Kelly!) was kind enough to take pictures for our Hope Fellowship baby shower a few weeks ago.

The pre-school age children find it easier than we do to accept pregnancy and childbirth.  (And as the picture shows, they were very eager to help us open gifts.)  My encounters with 3-5 year olds during my pregnancy have been surprisingly profound.  They are just tall enough that they have to look up and over my belly to talk to me, and more than one of them has put her hands on my belly and said with a look of utter seriousness, "You are going to have a baby."  They ask questions like, "Can I see it?"  "When is your baby going to come out?"  "Why can't I see it?" When I tell them the baby is inside and is not big enough to come out yet, they stare up at me with a look of wonder that I can only describe as having some glimmer of memory.  They are, after all, not so very far removed from the womb themselves.  I guess I don't mean that they literally remember being in the womb, but they seem to understand or accept pregnancy and childbirth on an intuitive level that I have never perceived in my conversations with adults.  Whatever there is to this, I have very much enjoyed my interactions with children as a pregnant lady.  Hard to fathom that our son will be that age himself some day.