Apparently, according to my father and several pregnancy books, the nesting instict is supposed to hit me hard right about now. I should be demanding my husband put up crown molding in our garage, or stashing away pounds of frozen lasagna and casserole. Well, I'm not doing any of those things, though I guess you could say we are nesting in a pretty big way.
This is our backyard as of the middle of last week:
It used to have a porch and grass and trees. Then, we decided to add on a third bedroom and second bathroom and, while we were at it, expand and re-do the kitchen. No small-scale painting of the office-turned-nursery or baking muffins; no, we jumped right in to nesting in the biggest way we could think of, short of building a whole new house. At the time, it seemed like a good idea. If we were going to add on, why not add on before the baby could crawl around amongst rusty nails and dirt? Our remodeler (who looks like Santa Claus, and in fact plays Santa Claus in his small mountain town each winter - I'll share some pictures with you later) is pretty great, and things are moving along on schedule. Piles of dirt do not look like progress, but Santa and my husband both tell me that this is an important step toward having a floor, walls, and a roof.
Of course, there are the frustrations that go along with tearing up your yard and hacking holes in your kitchen and having to choose one faucet from among the 123,000 faucet choices. I wish I could participate in the kitchen demolition and nest deconstruction to get out some of my frustrations - after a day of being told by coworkers that I just keep on getting bigger and bigger (yes, thank you, that's how pregnancy works) and throwing up once again, wreaking a little controlled havok would be nice. But it's more prudent to keep the pregnant girl outside of the construction zone and away from the dust, especially now that we have an unusable kitchen, and I'm staying across town at my parents' place, while they're galavanting about in eastern Europe.
Actually, doing this during pregnancy may be a good thing - I have even less patience for deliberating over sinks and toilets and tile than I did before. While we were at a large flooring warehouse, flipping through heavy racks of tile and slate, the tingling and burning of sciatica struck, and I became even more aware that the slight differences in the shades of beige and grey from one kind of slate to the other meant almost nothing to me, and I just wanted to pick something and be done with it all and go sit down. Luckily, my knee-jerk decorating sense has not yet resulted in a disco ball lamp for the bathroom or shiny pink tile for the kitchen, probably because my man has been there to talk me through the most important decision-making points and keep me fed. Though a disco ball lamp might be kind of cool and make bath time more exciting. My nesting instict only applies to soft goods - put me in Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and I'm happy to mull over the merits of various towels, but get me in to Home Depot and all I want to do is grab some paint samples and then hit the hot dog stand outside.
We're on target for completion on October 16th, two and a half weeks before the wiggling, bladder-kicking madman/woman in my belly is slated to make his or her grand entrance. Hopefully, the baby decides not to show up too early, and at least lets us get the dishes put away before arriving or, failing that, waits until we've got walls, windows, and a roof. We're keeping our fingers crossed, and I'm actively sending the baby "take your time, hang out in there awhile, there's no rush," messages.
