Excited/Stressed

I am feeling a little wound up/frazzled this week. Friday afternoon I leave for Kentucky, where I am the matron of honor (ugh, I'm a MATRON!) in my friend's wedding- my best friend from, I don't know, probably our sophomore or junior year of high school. I can't believe it's been ten years since she taught me how to skip class undetected. We've certainly gone our separate ways since high school, and haven't lived in the same town since 2003, but whenever we reconnect it's like no time has passed at all. It's pretty astonishing, actually, how quickly a married mother of three can revert to acting like a high schooler.

I'm so excited I can hardly stand it! The wedding weekend is going to be super fun, but mostly I'm just so happy because I think I have never before met a couple so perfect together. I can definitely give the sappy part of my toast ("I know you two will be happy forever!") with a clear conscience, because I will be telling the absolute truth: they were made for each other. And that's the most important part of the wedding, OBVIOUSLY. All the rest are just minor details in comparison. But still. I want everything to go perfectly, and mostly I want to not trip walking down the aisle in the heels which I am being ordered to wear but which I am so not used to walking in anymore.

I am also kind of nervous about the speech thing, as I have been told to keep the mushy stuff to a minimum and aim for funny instead. I think in general I AM a pretty funny conversationalist, but giving a speech is different. I've never had to PLAN for funny before. It's just... tricky. Lord knows we've all heard some painfully awkward wedding toasts in which the speaker was clearly aiming for funny but instead the speech went full-tilt too much information. There's a very fine line between a funny story about the bride/groom and a mortifying story about the bride/groom which none of the new in laws (or in fact the person's own blood relatives) ever needed to hear, y'know? So. TRICKY. Anyone know a good joke or ice breaker?

Other wedding related frets include the following:

-I am leaving on Friday to attend the rehearsal/dinner, as well as the wedding the next day, obviously, so I will be gone from Eli and Jamie for over forty eight hours. This is making me feel a little teary, and worried about how they will cope.

-The boys will be with two different sets of babysitters between Saturday afternoon (when Jim and Addy leave for the wedding) and Sunday afternoon when we all get home. I am fretting about the logistics of this and also Eli's behavior with other adults, one of whom he doesn't know very well, unfortunately.

-Relatedly, I am fretting about making sure the house is clean and organized and that all possible child-related supplies are stocked up on, since there will be all these people at my house, taking care of my kids, while I'm four hours away. I need to leave all these NOTES and LISTS about food and bedtime (Pull Up must be on! and then probably sheets will need stripped in the morning despite Pull Up!) and how to work the streaming Netflix and when/if to give baths and vitamins and time outs and and and....

-finding my way around Louisville, since I am so terrible at directions and can get myself turned around and confused in my own hometown where I have lived my entire life.


But at least we found babysitters, THANK GOD. It was getting down to the wire there.

Adding to the stress of the week:

-My doula client has been in the hospital since last Thursday with preterm labor issues. She even failed her fetal fibronectin test, so she's on strict bedrest until she has the baby, basically. This sucks for many reasons, obviously, but it especially sucks because a) she gets out of the hospital the day I leave for Kentucky, and I don't want her to go and have the baby the weekend I am gone! And b) she will almost definitely deliver before I attend my doula workshops in November (just ten days before her due date) which means that her birth can't count toward my certification. And c) if she does deliver before thirty six weeks, which seems likely, her birth is going to be a lot more medical than we were hoping, for obvious reasons which I agree with but which nonetheless stink.

-Our doctor heard a heart murmur when Eli had his check up last week, so today I am taking him to the hospital for an echo cardiogram (sp?) Addy had one at three months old, and was fine, and my nephew had one a few months ago, and was also fine. So maybe heart murmurs just run in the family? But this seems more concerning, since both of the other kids' were heard as infants (i.e. the murmur was present basically from birth) but Eli's always been fine up until now, so this is a new development. I'm honestly not super worried, but, you know... It's never a breeze taking your kid to the hospital for something HEART RELATED.