A Place to Land

Jimi

"I dip my toe in the water"    

Karen is now nine months pregnant and is due in a week and a half. She has doctor's appointments every other week and I have been taking her. Even though she denies it, she needs help walking around and getting places. She doesn't really like to leave her apartment because she always has to go to the bathroom and her ankles hurt. I don't blame her, so I spend just about every day with her so she doesn't have to be alone. I'm surprised she isn't sick of me. We finished recording the album around month four of her pregnancy and have had a few shows here and there, but haven't had any since about month seven.

She has spent a lot of time preparing for the baby and I have been helping. I went with her to pick out the crib and bedroom furniture for the baby. She insisted on going by herself, but I wasn't going to let her do all that heavy lifting being eight months pregnant. For the most part, the nursery is put together. Lucky for us, Karen's landlord allows her to paint the walls. We decided to leave it the neutral color that it was and add a light yellow accent wall. Karen stenciled in brown animals all over the wall. Karen didn't want to make it super girly. She has never been into the pink frilly things and I wouldn't expect her to all of a sudden like all that stuff because she is having a girl.

I really love spending time with Karen. I love being around her. The more time we spend together, the more I fall in love with her. As much as I would love to tell her how I feel, I don't want to overwhelm her with all she has to worry about with the baby. I don't want to stress her out and I don't want to jeopardize our friendship. It is perfect right now.

It is about 8:30 in the morning so I decided to get ready for the day. I wanted to stop and get Karen some hot chocolate from her favorite coffee shop before I head over there. She has been craving hot chocolate lately and she is out of it at her apartment so she is probably going to be in an irritable mood when I get there, but that's okay.

When I was ready to go, I grabbed my keys and left. I stopped at the coffee shop and ordered myself a coffee and Karen's hot chocolate. When they were ready, I headed over to her place. She gave me a key since I have been taking her to her doctor's appointments every other week.

I got to her door and grabbed my key and unlocked the door. I heard the shower running so at least she is up. I set her hot chocolate on the counter and hung out in the kitchen until she was done in the bathroom. She waddled out of the bathroom wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. She didn't dry her hair so it was still damp from her shower.

"I didn't even hear you come in" she said.

"You were still in the shower" I said. I picked up the hot chocolate and handed it to her.

"I got you some hot chocolate" I said with a smile. She grabbed it and took a drink.

"Thank you" she said with a smile.

"So what do you want to do today?" I asked her.

"I just woke up and I'm already exhausted" she said with a giggle.

"Let's go sit down then" I suggested and we walked over to the couch. As she was sitting down, she took in a sharp breath.

"Are you okay?" I asked worriedly.

"Yeah. It's just another Braxton hick's contraction" she said and got comfortable on the couch.

"Do you need anything?" I asked her.

"No, I'm fine" she said and I nodded.

"You can turn on whatever, I'm going to take a nap" she said.

"You just woke up" I said with a chuckle.

"I didn't sleep very well last night. She kept kicking me and didn't calm down at all" she said.