30 . . . And Nesting

Otherwise titled, "How I Lost My Mind."

I usually think that most pregnancy "symptoms" are mostly made up for the sake of a fun story.  But this one has proven unfortunately true in my case.  You see, I'm not usually a neat housekeeper.  I mean, I try to keep a certain level of clean around here, but I will admit it isn't my top priority.  There is a small level of clutter that I just don't notice, day to day.  When it gets above that level, then it is time to clean.

Well, when we came back from Vegas, some combination of finally ditching the cold Tyler gave me two months ago, being invigorated by being out in the actual sunshine for a few days, and seeing how immaculate my sister-in-law keeps her house woke me up.  Suddenly, all I could see was clutter.  And dust.  And mis-matched, ratty decorations on the walls.  And it hit me how NOT ready we are for a baby to come home.

My first attack was the hutch in our kitchen.  For years, it has contained absolute randomness - sippy cups we don't use, construction paper for the kids, china I never find a use for, etc.  Viewable to the world, thanks to the glass door trend (ick).  I spent an entire day filling a box to be donated along with a trash bin, and had one small spot I could admire. 

Perhaps I should have taken before and after shots, but I don't think I could stand looking at the before look again, and the after just looks like a regular, bare cupboard.

Next up, for no particular reason, were the curtains.  When we first got the house I was rather proud of myself for finding a curtain for $3 at a garage sale to cover the sliding door.  I liked the fall leaves at the top.  Of course, those fall leaves have looked rather odd the rest of each year.  And it didn't match the curtain right next to it.  So when we were at the store one night, we started looking at curtains.  We didn't see ones we liked for the kitchen - but did find ones perfect for the front room, to replace the ones so sun-bleached that I didn't even keep them for scrap fabric.  And Christopher said he wanted new ones for our bedroom too. 

Before I knew it, we had 16 new curtain panels for various parts of our house, along with two new rods, and a couple of matching pillows.

Note to self: ironing 16 curtain panels is a lot more work than buying them.

After that, I moved on to the worst project of all - the most work, and the least pay off.  I figured I should get the little girl clothes out of storage and wash them for the baby.  I was meticulous about storing the kid's clothes until about when Kaitlyn was 9 months old.  At that point, things fell apart mostly because the sizes didn't make any sense anymore.  Kaitlyn wore "3 month" pants when she was 15 months old.  So things got put back a little out of order . . . and then a little worse . . . and for the last year, when the kids outgrew their clothes I literally stuffed them in a space between her dresser and the wall and called it good.

I spent days last week sorting clothes, surrounded by piles on our balcony for each size our kids have passed and a trash and DI pile to boot.  Every time I thought I was done, I would find more.  But the victory is that everything for a little girl newborn or 0-3 month is now washed and folded, and everything else is neatly back in the storage bins.

So on my birthday I was looking for a bit of a break.  I did have two awesome friends that came to hang out for my craft party thing, and two more who called to apologize that they got sick a the last minute.  But they all were gone before noon, and so it was back to work.  And like many days so far that week, that didn't go well.  My pregnant mind has gone beserk, and all I can think about is how badly the microwave needs to be cleaned, but my pregnant body just couldn't handle it.  Many times I end one of these sessions by lying in recliner, crying because I am so tired I can't move and all I can think about is the ironing pile that needs to be done.

My husband did his best, trying to remind me to pace myself, and we went out for dinner and a movie for my birthday.  But I felt rather bad leaving the kids behind, since Kaitlyn looked crestfallen that she wasn't coming to "Mommy's bir-day party."

I'm sorry, I should stop feeling sorry for myself.  Kaitlyn and I had a great time making bracelets together that morning - Christopher had gotten us a bead set to play with as a birthday present so I would have something to make with my little girl.  And he also got me a really expensive camera lens that I have been drooling over for a long time (I can't wait until that comes in the mail!).  I'm not even sure what I expected out of that day, but somehow stressed out over clutter while I couldn't leave the house just in case someone dropped by wasn't my dream for a big birthday.

Ugh.  Moving on.

Sorry for the depressing blog post, but hopefully I have enough happy ones to balance this out.

The good news is that progress is being made.  My bedroom and the nursery are now spotless, and I have been slowly getting everything we need for this little one.  I'm really happy with how the first floor of the house looks now - Christopher keeps commenting that we should have done this a long time ago.

And someday, I won't be pregnant anymore, and we can hope I will be a little less crazy.