Pregnancy Diary Week 36: Nesting

Week 36

This week I have been frantically nesting, feeling an overwhelming urge to get organised. I have been scouring the house, tackling tasks that have been on the to-do list since January (it’s now August), and generally exhibiting mild obsessive compulsive disorder. I would love to say that I’m one of those people whose house is always clean: “I’m such a clean freak me, always pushing the hoover round and dusting! What am I like, eh?!” But I’m so not. I can’t really be arsed. I’m fairly tidy, ish, but mostly out of necessity as my brain is too disorganised not to be, and I would spend my entire life looking for things if I wasn’t. Hard-core cleaning is very much reserved for when the mess gets so bad that I can’t stand it anymore. Or of course for when we have visitors coming, carried out in the hope that they’ll say: “Ooh, what a lovely clean house you have”, so I can bask in a temporary and illusory feeling of smugness: “Oh, it’s always like this. I’m such a clean freak me, always pushing the hoover round and dusting! What am I like, eh?!” But these are lies. With a two year old and a husband who is very similar to a two year old in his ability to keep things clean and tidy, I am fighting a losing battle. And frankly, there are better things to do with my time. Until now that is. Pregnancy hormones have turned me into a cleaning, tidying, organising machine. Quite unlike my usual self. Despite the fact that this is distinctly out of character, I am still getting on my high horse about it. Anyone with marginally less enthusiasm for getting shit done is the object of my pent up pregnancy ire. This is not working out well for my husband who, quite reasonably, if I’m totally logical, couldn’t give two fucks whether or not the tins are arranged so that their labels face outwards. When asked by my son: "What are you doing, Mummy?” during one of my latest nesting whirlwinds, the following passive aggressive sentence escaped my mouth: "I am multitasking darling, because Daddy is sitting on the sofa, and multitasking is what Mummies do. Can you say multitasking?... Well done!" What an arse. Thank God I can blame hormones. Although not entirely brilliant for your relationship, this nesting lark is rather productive. On Friday I cleaned the kitchen cupboards, did three loads of washing, a dump run, put stuff up in the loft, painted the skirting board in our bathroom and built the cot. I also cooked dinner, did pre and post nursery childcare, bath time and bedtime, and updated my fantasy football league team. Well done me. I now have an abundance of ammunition for passive aggressive outbursts, which should last the rest of this pregnancy. Result. This week has also seen enough online shopping to rival Black Friday, because we really need three months’ worth of nappy sacks and baby wipes, and a nasal aspirator in case the baby gets a cold. And a tens machine. Oh and some black and white baby books, as everyone says that it’s never too early to focus on cognitive development and I’ll have loads of time for home schooling my three week old in between feeds, nappy changes, toddler childcare and getting my shit together. It is essential that these things are in the house right now or the world might end (because one click next day delivery doesn’t exist and nor does the 24 hour supermarket we live a ten minute drive away from). It is very easy to get carried away. As well as battering my PayPal account, I have cleaned windows, organised drawers, thrown clothes away, and even descaled the sodding kettle. The house is cleaner, tidier and more organised that it has ever been. It is perhaps cleaner, tidier and more organised than any house has ever been in the history of ever, barring the houses of other pregnant women of course. And I am now completely knackered. Although wholly down to pregnancy, the timing of this blitz is rather laughable given that this baby is going to come out, fill every room with an array of portable chairs and cots arranged at slightly different angles of uprightness, shit on everything, sick up on everything and generally cause havoc. Right now they are rubbing their little hands together and thinking: “Just you wait…”