Little Birdy Lulu

Given how far removed we are (or think we are) from our animal nature, it strikes me as odd that many, many pregnant women find themselves "nesting" in the weeks before a birth. It's an obnoxiously, if accurately, titled phenomenon, and here's a bit about it from the Pregnancy Weekly Web site:

Nesting Instinct
Around the fifth month of pregnancy, the "nesting" instinct can set in. This is an uncontrollable urge to clean one's house brought on by a desire to prepare a nest for the new baby, to tie up loose ends of old projects and to organize your world.Females of the animal kingdom are all equipped with this same need. It is a primal instinct. Just as you see birds making their nests, mothers-to-be do exactly the same thing. The act of nesting puts you in control and gives a sense of accomplishment toward birth. You may become a homebody and want to retreat into the comfort of home and familiar company, like a brooding hen. The nesting urge can also be seen as a sign of the onset of labor when it occurs close to 40 weeks of pregnancy.Nesting brings about some unique and seemingly irrational behaviors in pregnant women and all of them experience it differently. . . . They have also reported doing things like taking apart the knobs on kitchen cupboards, just so they could disinfect the screws attached to the knobs. Women have discussed taking on cleaning their entire house, armed with a toothbrush. . . . Cleaning the kitchen cupboards and organizing everything by size to the point that you make sure the silverware patterns match when it's stacked in the cutlery drawer.

I must say that I am doing similar things. At first I thought it was just my usual run-a-tight-ship nature, intensified by the burst of energy I get from the blessed! blessed! change of season (I am NOT good in the heat). But then I came to realize that it was out of control. My house, which is usually clean, gets pretty messy during the week. Not anymore. Little messes are ruthlessly contained each evening. Even my desk--usually a seething mass of un-dealt-with catalogs and unfiled bills--is shockingly orderly. "Duh!" I thought. "I'm nesting!"

The first time around, with Stevie, my nesting was much more physical. Kevin and I had just moved into the converted carriage house on Kevin's parents' property that was our little home. It had an A-frame attic space that was unused and practically screaming to be converted into a wonderful bedroom. Kevin got all over it, laying down a floor, putting up drywall, installing three skylights, building a headboard, shelves, etc. On the eve before Stevie's birth, I spent the entire day mudding drywall. Since this was, remember, an A-frame, much of the time mudding was spent sitting on the ground, reaching waaaaay in front of me where the wall met the floor, squishing the basketball-size lump that was my son. I went to bed at 9 p.m., awoke at midnight to go to the bathroom, and my water broke. Kevin had just gotten done after an entire day of labor, only to drive me to the hospital so I could start mine. We were a bit tired. Stevie was tired, too--tired of being squashed by his broody mother.

I didn't realize I was nesting then. It took Kevin's cousin to point that out to me when I wondered aloud just why the hell I was making a huge batch of potato salad from scratch in the final days of my final trimester.

This time around, I've gone house mad. Though not scrubbing all of the cabinet pull screws, I am in the process of replacing the cabinet pulls, which is a long process requiring loads of thought (and money! We need 35 of them, and they average $4 each!). I've started cleaning out the cupboards, which means Murphy's Oil Soap inside and out, a thorough cleaning of each individual piece of stemware in my "bar", and careful organization of what remains. This is not so hard, because I normally keep my cabinets pretty well organized and free of fluff. But now they have to be more like Super Clean and Organized.

Also, adding to the nesting hysteria, I am outfitting each and every naked window in my house with new curtains and rods. That quest will continue today at lunch, when I seek out the final few rods. I will finish the cabinets this weekend, too. I've already done the rec room part of the basement (carefully alphabetizing every last CD and checking strays for the correct content) and the pantry--like, ALL the shelves in the pantry, reorganizing food, etc. I may also take on the storage part of the basement, going through boxes of school lessons, craft supplies, and so many damn picture frames and mattes that I just don't know how I acquired that many picture frames and mattes!

The good news is, once again, that my house is already pretty clean and clutter-free. What I have planned is like waxing a clean car--not necessary for my mental health, but deeply satisfying in that 'can't-be-any-doner' sorta way.

One more thing--the quilts. Suddenly I am on a quilting rampage! I am sorting fabrics that will be made into people's Christmas gift quilts. I am finishing and batting and backing and basting all unfinished quilt tops, readying them for a surge of handquilting. I had Kevin bring up my quilting--AND nursing--chair and my special quilting light from the basement. I made a special trip all the way to Columbus on a weekend to buy . . . thread. Now I'm stocked, man. I am so ready.

I must say that fall is the perfect season to be in the final trimester. My lord I love autumn! I just got the official medical word that the two parts of my pelvic bone are grinding against themselves, which leads to constant discomfort, which makes me feel guilt-free about not exercising (beyond the irrational housework workout). We'll have two cords of wood stacked this weekend, and I can hardly wait for that first cozy and penetrating woodstove fire, the first wisps of woodsmoke. And, yes Hank, I'm ready for some football. So I feel completely, utterly entitled to sit in my chair, quilt, watch football, and wait out the rest of this pregnancy . . . when my decluttering and special projects and drape-hanging and shower-curtain making are done.