How much is my fine?

Well, the day has arrived. The due date. Funny thing, though. It's not like a library book due date or the one at the video store. There are no late fines. Although, there are people calling my house. But not to return something we've borrowed. It's a little different.

Many requests have been issued: today is John's great grandfather's birthday, a close friend of Grandma Hickey's birthday and my Great Aunt Dorothy's birthday. I'm just not feeling it's going to happen by midnight. Sorry, folks. John's cousin will be celebrating his 8th birthday on Friday and has said he'd love to have a cousin to share the birthday with - or so he thinks!

If there's one thing that this last week or so has taught me is that I have no control over the how or the when. I've felt quite ready for over a week now, periodically having strong contractions for a few hours at a time that suddenly stop. This is life - the lesson I am to learn this time. So I wait. And I enjoy the last time I will feel a person inside my body, kicking at my ribs and squirming about. The last time I will truly be able to protect this small being from the world around us. The last moments of calm before the storm. For I have been truly blessed with four easy pregnancies and healthy children... I am honored to have been able to carry these children into the world, knowing I am a different person than I was before - closer to the person I am meant to become.

On Children (from The Prophet)

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

-Khalil Gibran