I find that I’ve been
feeling very overwhelmed lately. Every
time I sit down for a minute to relax, I think of about fifty other things that
I “need” to do. I’m trying to learn to
embrace the cold, hard truth about having small children: Your house will never truly be clean; your
laundry will never be completely done; the kitchen will never be void of dirty
dishes, ever again. At least that seems
to be the case in this house…
Sadly, I’m not one of
those people who handles that kind of thing very well. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a crazy
neat-freak. But I do like order to my
chaos and I really hate a dirty kitchen.
I don’t vacuum every day (though I probably should with the rate Sam
finds little bits of things). I
certainly don’t dust daily (or even weekly, *gasp*). I’m pretty bad about letting dishes pile up
on the weekends, but that’s mostly because we keep jamming them full of other
household errands and things. So,
see! I’m not totally psycho about it.
Needless to say, I’m at
the tail end of my pregnancy now and I’m pretty sure I’m dealing with a nasty
case of nesting. My body is not very
cooperative with my motivation, though.
I want to scrub things and organize.
Not only does my body not want to work with me (Braxton Hicks, cramps,
exhaustion, big belly, etc), but the things I DO clean don’t STAY neat. I used to be able to clean and the house
stayed nice and fresh for at least a week or two. These days, when I clean, I’m lucky if I get
two or three DAYS of freshness! I just
can’t keep up that pace right now…
People keep telling me
to just let it go. But I just can’t seem
to do so. I just feel this anxious,
half-panicked feeling that the house isn’t clean enough. I have this overwhelming desire to Clorox E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. At the same time, when I go into a room to
tackle my desires, I just feel exhausted and defeated – like it’s too much for
me to conquer. I sulk back to the living
room and straighten up Sam’s toys and tell myself that “I’ve got time” and “it’s
not so bad”. Each day that goes by in
this vein leaves me feeling more and more anxious to get it all done.
- Wash windows.
- Scrub baseboards.
- Launder curtains.
- Wipe down walls.
- Organize cabinets.
- Dust ceiling fans.
- Change light bulbs.
- Check smoke detectors.
My list grows and grows
with each passing day.
If this is nesting,
then it’s HORRIBLE!! Why give me such
motivation with a body that moves like molasses in January and is about as
coordinated as my one year old??
I have 32 days until my
technical due date. They’ve already
mentioned the likelihood of induction again (in the 39th week) if
Sophie doesn’t come on her own. So I’m
planning on more like 20 days – just to be on the safe side. My mother-in-law closed on her house in
Florida yesterday and will be moving out of our basement this coming
weekend! So subtract another three days
for all the moving to take place and I’m down to 17 days. Seventeen days to get all I want accomplished
completed…!? Seventeen days with work primarily being conducted during nap time... which is usually only about two hours... That gives me, like, 34 hours of productivity time...! That's not even a full work week!
Anyone have a paper bag
they can hand me… I think I might hyperventilate.
I have to come to grips
that some things just aren’t going to get finished. I have no idea how I’m going to prioritize my
list (FYI: the above list is not the REAL list, just a sample of some of the things going through my poor brain). I’m sure most of it seems
ridiculous and over-the-top, but right now I honestly couldn’t tell the
difference between normal cleaning and the stuff that might be
over-the-top. It all feels very
important to me.
Well, I’m certainly not
getting anything done sitting her typing.
I think I’ll start with laundry today and see how far I get before Sam
wakes up…
Wish me luck! :o)
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