Delayed Something

A friend of mine is having a baby in about 2 months and I must say that I am jealous. Now, it's not the bad kind of wish-her-harm type of jealousy in any way, just the I-wish-it-were-me kind of jealousy. And maybe jealousy is even too strong of a word. But, there are two things I am sort of jealous of. First, that she is having a second baby. I loved being pregnant. I get positively giddy when I see pregnant women, no matter how far along they are, just because I know part of what they are or will be experiencing. Feeling life inside you is an amazing and powerful experience, and it is something that happens a limited number of times in your life. That time of being able to carry your child with you everywhere you go and feel him or her secretly move, tumble, and tussle inside you is indescribable. So there's that first.

Second, she is nesting. It's the typical pregnancy milestone kind of nesting. The strong urge to clean, set-up, and arrange that has been warned of in childbirth classes and memorialized in family anecdotes. And, in this I am jealous too because I never really nested. I certainly worked with my husband to clean out a room and set-up baby stuff and get clothes put away and those sorts of things. However, all of it was just the being-prepared-and-responsible-for-our-
new-family-member type stuff.

I never felt that switch flip and suddenly needed to clean and prepare. We have friends that cleaned their house better than I did, just because we were coming over for dinner and their house wasn't, "fit for a baby to breathe in." As an aside, their house is probably the most meticulously cleaned place I know of. There are two reasons I would have loved to have this sensation. First, it would have been motivation to do something more productive than read on-line boards about pregnancy and birth while timing prodromal labor contractions for hours on end each evening for four weeks. Second, my house really needed it.

But now three months out from his arrival I am getting all sorts of organizing and cleaning done. For the last two days I have done almost nothing but work on getting things put away, cleaned out, and cleaned up. And the state of both of our bathrooms are really starting to weigh on my mind, along with the carpet upstairs now that I think about it. This is strange. Anyone who has ever lived with me, and maybe some that haven't, can attest, I'm sure, to my lack of interest in almost all things cleaning related. If it involves laundry, a dust rag, or a vacuum then I am decidedly uninterested. But now, I'm thinking of putting myself on a weekly schedule to stay on top of these things. Is this delayed nesting perhaps? Maybe, it's just delayed Spring Cleaning or just wishful thinking. Either way, my house is looking better and better.

Maybe now I won't feel quite as jealous when I visit my friend and she has her sweet, new baby and an organized and cleaned house.