24 Weeks: Home is Where Your Heart Is

Dear Baby A,

Can you believe you are 24 weeks old?!  I know it's too early for you to understand division, but 24 divided by 4 equals - six.  I'm six months pregnant!  Holy cow!  I told your daddy that six months pregnant seems like such a grown up thing to be.  He thinks that's very silly, but seriously, for some reason when I think of being 6 months preggo I suddenly feel very much like an adult.  I know, I know, I have been an adult for some time, but it really hits home that sooner than later we'll be your parents.  Me, a parent.  Wow!  It's exciting and kind of scary all at the same time.  I hope you take after your daddy and are patient while we learn all there is to know about raising a little one.

This weekend, daddy and I decided to go for an adventure to St. Francisville, La.  On our way, we stopped in Manchac for some thin crispy fried catfish at Middendorf's.  Once in St. Francesville, we toured the Rosedown Plantation.  You should have seen it, BabyA.  It is just lovely.  Imagine how beautiful it will be in the fall when the flowers are in bloom!  After our tour, Daddy and I drove around the charming streets of the historic district.  It is a picture perfect place to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Rosedown Plantation

You see, Baby A, you will have the privilege of being raised in the great state of Louisiana, South Lousiana to be exact.  Down here we celebrate all of life's big events, but we celebrate nothing at all just the same.  Down here you will come to associate the seasons as follows: your first football game of fall, your first parade of winter, your first crawfish boil of spring, and your first evacuation of the summer.  You'll come to find that no matter how different we all are, when you're from South Louisiana, at the heart of it, we're all really very much the same.  We love food, we love life, and we love our family.  And family isn't defined by the people you're related to by blood.  Your family is made up of all of the people that surround your little world and fill it with love. 

Daddy and I had an amazing experience of living in Beaufort, SC for four years.  And in that time we truly came to love that community, and more than anything we loved the people we met there that will be our friends forever.  But there was one thing that was certain while we were away, we had left our hearts in LA.  For me, it is home.  It is the place where I feel most like myself.  Where people understand why you might not want to leave when a storm comes your way, because you truly can't imagine a life anywhere else. 

As you get older, I promise to try not to guilt you into staying down here and living your life here.  I will be honest with you, I'm an Italian Catholic, so guilt is my primary resource when it comes to this type of thing.  Instead, be prepared to spend your childhood going to festivals, strolling through the French Quarter, touring plantations, taking afternoon drives through the cane fields in the fall, sitting high atop a ladder at every parade that passes down St. Charles Ave, boiling crawfish, and going to Saints games.  If I can't guilt you into making this place your home, certainly we can show you how special it is so you can see that there's just no place like it.  And even if you decide to go away, you'll visit all the time!

Home is where your heart is little one.  I truly hope you find that your heart tugs everytime you're away from this place too long.  Then you'll know you left it here too.

Love,

Mommy and Daddy