So Close and Yet So Far

This title could apply to more than one aspect of life right now :). First, it is relevant to Jake's football game tonight. His team is mostly new to flag football - and naturally it shows, although they are working hard and getting better. They have lost their first four games now, but last night was SO CLOSE! They ended the first half up by 1 point with a score of 6 to 7. The boys got stomped last week and all want so badly to win a game, so they were very excited. In the 2nd 1/2, the other team scored but failed to get the extra point. Our team answered with a touchdown and extra point, so we were up by 2. There were 37 seconds left and the other team got the ball very close to our end zone. The boys knew they pretty much just had to hold them for one play. And yet... the defense let the other team get behind them, the QB threw a pass to one of their players and off he went the length of the field for the winning touchdown. It was really hard on the boys.
Jake made his share of mistakes in the game, but none that resulted in big plays or scores by the other team. All in all, he played fairly well - he got the flag a number of times, and on that last touchdown run he was trailing the opponent with the ball by several feet but he chased him down with full effort the length of the field and that made me proud. After the game, one of his teammates was in tears, and as we got to the parking lot Jake asked, 'why do we have to lose every game we play?' I told him they were getting close; they had lost on one type of play that they could practice defending against in the future, and that their time would come. Fingers crossed that it will motivate them to work even harder next week! We forgot our camera again - so will have to post football pictures after next week's game on Saturday morning.
On the pregnancy front, I'm getting close, and yet each day is LONG and it still seems far away. Our Dr.'s appointments are weekly and remain uneventful. The baby's head is still very high as was the case with Jake & Sydney. What that means is that even though I am having contractions and the baby is looking likely to be big again, my body isn't really getting ready to deliver. Until the head puts pressure on my cervix, she's staying put. So, it looks likely I will carry her all the way to the due date or past. If history repeats itself, the Dr. will decide at one of my appointments that I am likely to respond to induction and he will tell me to be at the hospital the next morning. Assuming my appointments continue to be on Mondays, it means I am likely to have the baby on the 21st or 28th of October. If it happens just as it did with Jake & Sydney, the baby will be born on the 28th, so that's kind of the date I have in my mind, although I would love for it to be sooner. Regardless, Kiley will likely have many lively costume parties for her Birthday!
I was thinking about it tonight - with other things in life, even really big things or really bad things, you have moments in each day when you forget. Sometimes it's just those first few seconds after you awake in the morning before the gravity of life hits you, but still there are moments. For me, at the end of pregnancy, it kind of becomes all-consuming. There really aren't any waking moments when I'm not aware of being pregnant - it's not a bad thing, but it's kind of a constant distraction for me - sometimes welcome, other times not. So many weird things happen when you are pregnant. In the past week, I have been in pain because my ribs are out of place, I ran a fever one night of 100.5 - completely inexplicably and gone within hours, and one day I was completely depressed - feeling like a horrible mother because I have so little energy right now, but I was back to normal the next day. All in all, I'm excited and ready, having a hard time concentrating on work, and dreaming of getting my body back. We worked some this week on the nursery, went to Babies R Us and bought a few more necessities, and are just a few steps closer to being well-prepared.