Meditating with 'Peace Oop,' our new birthing guru

We might not know what we're doing when it comes to welcoming this little one into the world, I mean, I suppose we know that whole push when told to push thing, and the smell the roses and blow out the candles stuff. We're pretty sure there'll be a lot of stress and strain and sweat and maybe even a little screaming...or a lot of screaming...and we're prepared for patience and pain. It's not hard to imagine any of those things but it's incredibly hard to actually relate to the absolute, guaranteed reality of them. So what do we do? The dumbest thing we can 'cause you know, that's how we roll 'round here.

We found ourselves a birthing guru...of sorts. He's more like a door jam or a lawn & garden ornament but we consider him a guru and so we're sticking with the notion regardless of it's idiocy. We found him at Pier 1 and grabbed him up with what we think were gift cards given to us over a year ago as a wedding gift by the Gougeon Family (Serree et Mikey, Sierra, Mama and Papa Gougeon and of course the belated Matt Gougeon). If they weren't from the Gougeons then we're pretending that they were so play along, okay?

So this guru..ahem, birthing guru...looked so damn peaceful and serene (or should we say Serree-n?) that we just had to snatch him up and deliver him from consumer and retail hell to our quiet little shack on the beach. We considered it a favor to both him and a service to us as we could use the obviously spiritually enlightened fella in the coming weeks. At the very least we would need a quality door jam after the baby arrives. In his ideal capacity we'd have ourselves a kick #&$ birthing coach who knows when to help out and when exactly when to shut up too. In the end everyone wins, including Pier 1. Awesome.

Anyway, that's our guy right there above all this nonsensical rhetoric. The golden fella hovering all guru-like before Junie's belly. He's pretty big, for sure bigger than baby Elli will be, and so we figured he'll be adequately sized to assert himself in the delivery room. Spiritually there's no question, he's bigger than all of us, but in actual physical terms we're confident that he's got the build to get the job done. He's a little lanky, as frogs naturally are, but he's solid, just pick him up and you'll know he's more than capable of the physical demands of birthing, especially when you're not the one doing it.

The natural next step in this stupid process was slapping a name on him and after not so careful consideration we came up with Peace Oop. It's a good name. If you say it really fast it sounds like pea soup which is appropriate we think. He's a frog, after all, and is supposed to be green but has somehow managed a golden hue, just like pea soup. He's extra-peaceful looking as you can see so the "peace" moniker makes perfect sense, but mostly it's just because saying it really quickly sounds great. So...Peace Oop it is...our esteemed and super valuable birthing guru and future door jam.

We're hoping that his very presence in our lives brings us more in harmony with the natural world and thereby increases our ability to steer through this birthing process relatively unscathed...at least emotionally...we're well aware of the damage that will occur down below on this ship as it steers through the icy waters of child birth. That's the part we're hoping Peace Oop helps us navigate through much more serenely than we may have otherwise been capable of.

Not sure if we're bringing him into the delivery room with us just yet. That'd be pretty funny. For now we're just gonna soak him in and try to gauge whether or not June will punch me right in the face if I pull him out of my bag while she's writhing in pain and sweaty anxiety. Either way you look at it Peace Oop will have distracted June from the craziness of the moment. Sure, I'll have a black eye or worse but June will feel better and even lawn ornaments and door jams know that's the point of it all.