You may remember that Az and I made the difficult decision to accept my parents’ invitation to move in with them so they could help us with childcare. We listed our house for sale for several months, but took it off the market during the last trimester of my pregnancy. We planned to relist our house in June.

We are not moving. We will stay here in the Midwest.

My brother is in the army and he received word last week that he will be deployed to Afghanistan soon. While he is gone, his wife and their three young children will move in with my parents. We are in prayer for his safe return and for his family.

Obviously this has disrupted the family in many ways, and one small outcome of it is that we will not be moving south. In many ways the decision is a relief - we were not sure we could sell the house in the current market, and now we don’t have to - but we wish the decision had a different impetus. My sister-in-law says she is rather weepy, and her oldest child is sometimes sad her daddy is going, and sometimes excited to live with Grandma and Grandpa and so close to their cousins. We hope for the best and pray. For now we will unpack our boxed-up books and settle back into life here.

My mother flew in yesterday. When we scheduled her visit, we assumed the baby would be here by now. Ha. My doctor, a rather rigid man, is not willing to induce for at least another week, so Mom may leave without getting to meet her new granddaughter.

But for now my Mom is cleaning my house, doing my laundry, playing with my children, and in general babying me as though I had some sort of excuse to lie around like a beached whale. After a nearly sleepless night last night, I had a long nap this morning. I slept the sleep of the nurtured while Mom got the kids out of bed, made them breakfast and read to them until I woke up.

The girls don’t see my folks very often. My parents are ten years younger than Az’s parents and they still work, so they can’t visit often. It took ten minutes for JellyBean and Sweetpea to decide that Grandmaw was worthy of adoration. Somehow they needed no more time than that to realize that everything they did was wonderful to her.

For now I am enduring the final stretch of pregnancy. Both my first two were early, and somehow I felt entitled to early, full-term babies. Now I have resigned myself to the idea that this one won’t come out until somebody makes her.

But it doesn’t seem so bad now that my Mom is here. I wish she could stay a year.

After three years of motherhood, I am still getting used to this job. I still remember the lovely unencumbered feeling of going where I wanted to without first asking “Will the stroller fit? Are kids welcome? Can they make noise? Where can I change them?” Sometimes I miss the freedom and independence of solitude.

Thursday is supposed to be my day, the day when Az watches the kids and I get to do other things important to me. We have just started this schedule, and I love it, but Sweetpea has been sick for a few days, so today did not work out. Instead of reading and writing and going to the library and coffeehouse, I have been providing mama-comfort to the queen of vommit.

Sweetpea is ordinarily a serene and self-possessed child, but her temper changes whenever something is physically wrong. Hunger, exhaustion, injury and illness turn her into a scolding or sobbing tyrant. Up comes breakfast all over the floor, and she stands in it screaming at us: Make this better! Make me better! Now, now, now!

Among the other changes, though, is a special one: illness makes her cuddly. Ordinarily she doesn’t want much physical affection. It gets in the way of her many goals: grabbing that toy, climbing those steps, flopping on that cushion, holding that book. But when she is ill, nothing will do but snuggling into Mama’s bosom, thumb firmly planted in mouth, clinging to me as though health itself radiated through my body heat. I love this. I eat it up. I can handle a little vommit when this is my reward.

One night, after a tiring day of dealing with one demanding sick girl and one demanding healthy girl, I went in to check on them after bedtime. Sweetpea was sleeping peacefully, curled up with her blanket. JellyBean looked up at me and said, “Mommy, I want some snuggles.”

I lay down in her big girl bed and she scooted so I could slip my arm under her shoulders. Then she turned toward me, put one hand on each side of my face, looked into my eyes and said, “Oh, Mommy. I love you so much.”

Hmm. Solitude is overrated.