4.15.2011

Sick of Nesting



I can't stand it anymore. My due date is tomorrow and she still isn't here. If she doesn't come by Tuesday morning, I have to have the dreaded appointment where my doctor & I discuss induction.

My first day of maternity leave was April 4, 12 days ago, not that I'm counting. The first couple of days were relaxing and fun and happily productive. Since then I've gone through multiple roller coaster ups & downs of peacefulness, anxiety, restfulness, restlessness, enjoyment of the spring sunshine and moving at a slow pace, extreme boredom, enjoyment of quality family time, impatience, enjoyment of me time, loneliness...

I've written and finished multiple iterations of to do lists, created projects for myself just to have something to do, dredged up stale tasks that have been avoided for years and taken care of them, and generally driven myself nuts. I'm a person who nests even when I'm not pregnant, anytime there's a spare moment to organize or prepare something, so being pregnant and off of work is a really bad combination for me.

Here's a list of what I've done for the past 12 days and I'm sure it's not even completely exhaustive:

  1. Went to Michael’s to buy scrapbooking stuff
  2. Created 10 scrapbook layouts
  3. Returned an item at Michael’s, browsed around for a long time to replace it
  4. Organized all the ripped out of magazine recipes into recipe notebook
  5. Tried 4 new recipes
  6. Baked banana bread, ate 25%, froze 75%
  7. Stocked up the freezer
  8. Prepared soil in two raised garden beds, stopping every few minutes to catch breath
  9. Planted seeds, installed labels, tomato cages & bean poles in garden beds
  10. Watered the garden beds each day
  11. Rinsed, sorted, and culled all the backyard sand toys, riding toys, trucks & balls, re-organized into bins
  12. Re-arranged backyard furniture, playhouse, slide, & basketball hoop
  13. Had a service demo and remove old shed, along with some other yard junk
  14. Broke down and recycled accumulated cardboard boxes
  15. Cleaned & dried the ice chest
  16. Hung up wind chimes now that the too windy season is over
  17. Installed elbow on outdoor spigot
  18. Threw out broken 25’ coiled hose
  19. Unwound & rinsed spider webs off of 100’ hose, stopping often to catch breath
  20. Installed hose winder to new elbow with new connector hose & seal
  21. Wound 100’ hose into hose winder, stopping every few turns to catch breath
  22. Realized 100’ hose leaked where connected to winder and is too heavy, annoying to actually practically use on a daily basis
  23. *Replaced 100’ hose with new 50’ hose on hose winder
  24. Realized really never liked hose winder at all
  25. *Purchased basket to wind hose into instead
  26. Washed all the remaining unwashed baby clothes
  27. *Installed curtain rod and curtain in nursery
  28. Sat in nursery in contemplation
  29. Washed & changed all the bed linens
  30. Stocked up on post-partum supplies
  31. Moved alarm clock to Backtire’s side of the bed since I’m not waking up for work anymore
  32. Moved alarm clock back to my side to time contractions one night
  33. Got excited & nervous after 2 hours of 10 min apart contractions
  34. Called doula & brother-in-law to put them on alert
  35. Kept timing contractions that went on every 10 min for 8 hours, but then just stopped
  36. Texted doula that nothing ended up happening
  37. Got really bummed out
  38. Organized Turtle’s bookshelves, stopping just short of using the Dewey Decimal system
  39. Went through Turtle’s dresser and closet, pulling out outgrown clothes, putting out the next size up
  40. Did near daily small loads of laundry to just “stay on top of it”
  41. Went through 4 filing cabinet drawers, thinning, re-organizing, re-labeling, and shredding
  42. Created a rock & mineral kit with accompanying explanatory book for Turtle’s preschool classroom, delivered it & used it with the kids
  43. Checked and kept up with work email daily
  44. Filled out work paperwork
  45. Renewed my teaching credential
  46. Checked and kept up with personal email daily
  47. Wiped the hard drive of, found the accessories to, posted on craigslist, & met with buyer to sell old laptop
  48. Went through computer accessory box, culled, set aside e-waste
  49. Went on near daily walks to Starbucks to drink, eat, read, and kill time
  50. Took Turtle to the park for 5 hours
  51. Took Turtle out to breakfast twice
  52. Met friend from work for lunch date
  53. Went on a lunch date with my mom
  54. Toured the house for sale on my street
  55. Dyed my hair
  56. Drove to distant mall to exchange one of Turtle’s birthday gifts
  57. Used gift certificate to order two pairs of shoes online
  58. Received shoes, tried them on, called for return authorization for one pair
  59. Packaged up one pair of shoes, went to UPS store to ship back to shoe store
  60. Shipped birthday present to my brother
  61. Set up, synced, and started learning how to use my new iPad2
  62. Organized a bunch of files on work computer
  63. Organized a bunch of files on home computer
  64. Wrote & mailed a big pile of thank you notes
  65. Supervised & battled with Turtle over writing & mailing one thank you note per day for his birthday gifts
  66. Went through both bookshelves, re-organized books, pulled out ones to return or lend to people or give away
  67. Found over 5 year old disposable camera and dropped off to be developed
  68. Superglued broken toy
  69. Read Pink Brain, Blue Brain
  70. Read Eat, Pray, Love
  71. Read Pope Joan
  72. Read Free Range Kids
  73. Read every current magazine in the house
  74. Organized old National Geographics into piles for each of the last 4 years, started going back and reading the ones I never read
  75. Read a bunch of blogs
  76. Read chapters and chapters and chapters of The Borrowers, Ralph & The Motorcycle, The Trumpet of the Swan, etc. to Turtle
  77. Watched about 20 TED talks
  78. Watched Away We Go
  79. Watched The Social Network
  80. Took in a matinee of The King’s Speech
  81. Called my mom
  82. Called my sister
  83. Called my friends
  84. Texted my friends
(*To be fair, Backtire actually did these 3 tasks. But I led the charge.)


What's left? Perhaps I'll have to go gather some twigs, grass, and mud and start building an actual nest.


If you see something like this in my front yard, you'll know I've gone overdue...

(If you want to see more, check out the artist, Patrick Dougherty.)