Nesting At The Most Inopportune Times
Nesting is a natural process mothers of many species participate in to prepare for their babies' arrivals.
The other night, I got this intense urge to deep clean the bathroom. I mean take everything out, get on my hands and knees with a green scratch pad and a can of cleaner, and just scrub everything. Evidently, this was at about 9:00 at night. By this hour, I’m usually brushing my teeth, not scrubbing a bathtub. The only time I ever clean obsessively is if I’m upset about something; I suppose I find cleaning to be soothing and a way to regain some control. My husband cautiously craned his head over the couch and asked “…are you… Nesting?” I chuckled a little to myself at his observation.
“Yes, I think I am.” Now if only I could keep up this nesting nonsense long enough to make the whole house sparkle at the same time. Last week, it was the floors that triggered a nesting instinct. I just decided the kitchen floor needed to be waxed. No particular reason, I just had to do it. As I’m writing this post, I’m making a mental to-do list of things to accomplish as the nesting instinct kicks in. The fridge could use a thorough scrub down, the nursery (which is currently being used as a storage room) could use a bit of organization, I really need to find the box I got the holiday decorations out of so I can put them away, and dishes are always in need of being done.
I can almost guarantee that I spend more time on the internet looking up cleaning product recipes than I do actually cleaning… until the nesting starts up again. Then you better lift your feet and stay out of my way because I’m on a cleaning frenzy and that frenzy has no sense of time of day or other things that need to be accomplished at the moment. My finger nails are so chipped and my hands are usually swollen with water log since I’ve started nesting. It’s silly when I look at it objectively, but I can think of a lot worse things I could be spending my time doing.
At what point in your pregnancy did you begin “nesting”? Did you drive your spouse up the wall with your antics?
