Cleaning demons

So, it's my first day of maternity leave and instead of napping, shopping for new baby gear online or watching court tv reruns like a normal person who finds herself with some free time to fill, I've spent the morning scrubbing floors, washing windows, painting walls and doing laundry (and checking blood, of course. Always checking blood.). I guess I've started nesting.

What kind of cruel trick of nature is it that forces barrel-shaped preggos, who would otherwise do anything to avoid cleaning, to get down on all fours and scour the paint chips off of a hardwood floor with nothing more than a bristly scrub brush and their own fingernails? Or to waddle up stepladders to whack cobwebs from ceilings and wash dust from the walls. It's like I can smell dust and lint clumps with my super-amped up pregnancy nose, and it disgusts me. Clearly, sanity has once again taken a backseat to pregnancy.

Generally speaking, I'm a normal person--I dread cleaning and only do it when I really can't stand the sight of the mess anymore or am expecting company or my mother and feel forced into the activity. And yet, hormones rule. I grunted over a bucket full of hot water and Mr. Clean (lavender scent, of course) and got busy this morning. I tackled the floor, the windows, the furniture and anything else that got in my way. (A lot of stuff gets in my way at the moment. Gawd! I am tired of this huge, awkward belly.)

I am glad, however, to announce that B's room is almost complete. If Hubby hadn't got my sworn promise last night "to not do anything crazy like try to move her bed in here"all by myself, it would already be done. Ready to surprise her this afternoon when I go to pick her up from daycare. But alas--I'm not supposed to move beds. So, I wait. Impatiently.

"What's the rush?" My husband asks.

B needs to be fully moved out of her room in order to finally put #2's nursery in order. (That's right. Even in our house with its five bedrooms, we don't have a proper spot for the new kid to sleep yet!) But, as he sees it, #2 will likely sleep in our room for the first month of her life and we could tackle the project when he is on paternity leave and has more time at home during the day to paint/screw/hammer/install light fixtures, etc.

To me, however, it's important that B be fully familiarized with her new room, her new furniture, her new place in the universe BEFORE #2 arrives and she feels like her 'stuff'' has been taken over by her new baby sister. I'm trying to avoid too many changes at once, and I think that's reasonable. Hubby gets it, but he still doesn't understand my desire to get things done right this minute.

"What was admirable is now bordering on obsessive," he observed when he found out I painted her bedroom door over the weekend while he was helping out my brother-in-law put up new siding on my sister's house. He was busy, B was napping and I was eager to get another thing crossed off the list. (I'm a big believer in lists--especially crossing stuff off of them. Sometimes, I'll add stuff to the list that I've already done, just so I can cross something off. Sad, I know.)

Anyhoot--the room's nearly done and B should be able to sleep in tonight. It looks great, if I do say so myself. I'm tempted to tell her to go sleep with Daddy, and I'll stay in it tonight. It's that cute.

Anyways, might as well get back to my 'spring cleaning.' I only have a few hours before the munchkin returns from daycare and I still have some more toys and clothes of hers to bustle into her new room.