36 Weeks: Happy Thanksgiving!

Over the past couple of weeks, I've found myself simultaneously uttering silent prayers of humbly joyful thanksgiving and desperately pleading petition as the boys in the house have taken to more regularly resting their heads on my round, full belly.  For Gideon, this is in addition to his regular daily practice long-held from the very early days of pregnancy of kissing, zerberting and tickling the baby in my belly.  Now he hugs the baby and says, "I love the baby so much.  It's doing pretty good at making it out this time." My heart warms, swells, panics, and breaks all at once.  I don't know that I've ever wanted something for someone else so much before.

We are so thankful for all this year has brought.

We're thankful for a house sturdy enough to withstand an earthquake and a hurricane in the same week.

We're thankful for a full-face helmet and leather jacket with joint and spinal protection that kept Jeremy's injuries to a minimum when someone pulled out in front of him while he was riding his motorcycle.  (And Amy's especially thankful that he's humoring her by delaying purchase of a new bike until after baby arrives.)

We're thankful Gideon is thriving in his 5-morning pre-K and that our leap of faith in changing our plans and making that decision seems to be paying off.

We're thankful for the ongoing introduction of new friends into our lives, as well as continued community with friends flung literally around the globe.

We're thankful for family always ready and willing to meet, visit, accommodate, lend a hand, pick up from the airport, even on short notice and when too much time has lapsed between communications.

We're thankful for Jeremy's job, which despite all its ups and downs and occasional vulnerability, continues to provide a standard of living that keeps us comfortable and allows Amy to be a stay-at-home mom.

We're thankful for clean air, running water, and a little spot of land with our name on it.

And, as I've already said (perhaps ad nauseum?), we are overwhelmingly, inexpressibly, joyously grateful that the tiniest room in the house (save the bathrooms, of course) - previously packed with exercise equipment and generally ignored and untended to - now looks like this and in less than a month will be become the center of our world.  

(We're also thankful for neighbors like Fern Flanary Quinn, a photographer who snapped our first official family portraits in three years.)

A very happy Thanksgiving to all of you!  May your blessings always outweigh your struggles.