Nesting: The Good, The Bad, and the Labeled

I have been feeling really crappy though most of this pregnancy, but this week I got a burst of energy that defied the immobility and exhaustion that have been hallmarks of the last few months. I am finally at full-term, and something kicked into gear. I feel physically better, and I feel motivate to GET S#!$ DONE. And not just in a normal, let’s complete a task kind of way. More like a compulsive, tweaking, crystal-meth-fueled way. It’s like I look at the house, and every inch needs to be fixed, cleaned, reorganized, and/or labeled.

This would be the phase of pregnancy commonly referred to as “nesting”. There are some theories about why nesting happens: your hormones kick in prior to labor, or your excessive energy manages itself in home projects.

I would disagree, in my case. For me, nesting is about trying to find structure and control in a scenario where I am completely out-of-control. I have no idea when this baby will come. I have no idea where I will be when labor starts, or how long it will take, or if the kids will be okay without us, or if Karis will come out healthy and normal, or even come out at all. The end of a pregnancy is full of ambiguity, but for type-A moms like me, the nesting serves a purpose. I may not know what day I will give birth, but dammit, I DO know where to place the white table linens because they are CLEARLY LABELED. I know which towels go where, which shelf in the pantry is for soup vs. beans, and which type of batteries get stacked in each compartment of the junk drawer.

In the last few days, I hung a towel rack, organized the linen closet (now with labels), labeled the kid’s toy bins, installed a shoe rack, organized my own drawers (yes with labels too) and cleaned out the junk drawer. I refiled all of our files in the garage, sorted goodwill items, nested boxes, put random junk back on their shelves. I even went through old photos and started putting them,in albums.

I did a major overhaul of the closet in India’s room, which will soon be the baby’s room. There is no inch of this closet left bare. It is minuscule, so we needed every space to be maximized. Their hanging clothes are hung with matching pants pinned on. Their jackets are on coat racks and their shoes are in shoe bags that hang from the door. Each girl has a separate tupperware for future clothes, and four green (labeled) bins for socks, swimsuits, shorts, and tees. I have no earthly idea how this closet will every accommodate two teenage girls. But for right now, it is the pinnacle of functionality.

I have been a mad-woman of organization. And honestly, it is just the distraction I need right now to not be stressing about this pregnancy. So it serves it’s purpose – even though my husband is slightly scared of me now.

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