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Nesting Together

Nesting: A pregnant woman's natural urge to clean, prepare, and accomplish mass quantities of to-do's before the arrival of a new baby. You might ask, "so how is that any different then your normal self?"

In my first pregnancy I was obsessed with removing the mildew smell from an old steamer truck that we used to keep all our Halloween costumes in. (Which were also smelly.) I succeeded in de-stinking the costumes but had little luck on the box.... which I ended up just throwing away after giving birth despite all the crazy efforts I'd gone through.

This time around, we had the yard sale. I've been thinking to myself that it would be useful to schedule a pregnancy every 5 years or so just so I could find the motivation to re-organize and clean out the entire house. (Not going to happen by the way.)

The strange thing is, now with only a couple weeks left to go, everyone around me seems to want to help "build the nest" so to speak. Take the past week as an example:

Monday Mike had our plumber over and the two of them finished the pump plumbing downstairs.


Tuesday through Thursday nights after work, Mike completed final plumbing on the downstairs sink and shower, hooked up the recessed lights and fan fixture, vacuumed the entire downstairs, and began work on drywall outside of the bathroom so that the doors will be able to be hung.






Thursday night, we began using the bathroom full time. 7/12/12. Mikey was the first one to take a bath in "the big tubby." And with everything functional, Mike and I were soon to follow. We brought down what we needed from the old bathroom - all shower soaps/shampoos and the shower curtain. We also brought down toothbrushes and toothpaste and a couple other things. I had to leave my contacts and the hair brushes upstairs, since we have no mirror downstairs as of yet. (Can't put up a mirror until we see where the light fixture over the sink is going to sit exactly.) And with no towel racks and no hooks, it's a little difficult to bring down all the towels and bathrobes.

So we're living in the middle of a Tale of Two Bathrooms. Downstairs shower, upstairs miscellaneous.

And you can blame my nesting for a couple of giant bathroom related shopping trips on Friday and Saturday if you'd like. I picked up a new shower curtain rod, curtain holders, curtain, liner, microfiber absorbent bath mat, soap dispenser, toothbrush holder, over-the-door hooks, toilet paper holder, and one single hook. Of course, I was unhappy with the expense of nice bathroom accessories. The brushed nickle shower curtain rod alone was $40. The bath mat was $25... I had wanted the larger one, but it was $60. Ouch. Everything else was between $10 and $20 each. (The only thing from stopping me from buying the rest - towel rods, closet organizer, shelving etc etc.)

Mike also admitted to me he cleaned out the shop at work of his own accord. I didn't tell him there was such a thing as male nesting, but there is.

Now to the weird part... out of the blue, Mike scheduled the dude to come set the chimney foundation form - tomorrow. And he's coming. Wow.

If you think that's a coincidence, our neighbor dropped by this morning and said our carpenter wanted to come by and measure our porch to build the final front steps in the coming weekends. And he'll give us an estimate on a rubber roof for the kitchen, which we hope to accomplish in early September while the weather is still warm, but not scorching.

And he came by! I somehow missed the doorbell ringing, but he left a note and said he'd be back in a couple of weeks to do the job. Mike will give him a call to get the materials list.

It's enough to make your head spin!

Thank god I'm keeping busy. Saturday, after that big shopping trip, I came home and did this:


A little wall decor in the baby's area. (Since we share the room.) I also put up some other decorative shelves that had been sitting around gathering dust and completed a photo collage for the hallway with some of our travel pictures. Then I brought up a toy sized box from downstairs and loaded it with all the baby toys previously stored in Mikey's closet. And that's all just the tip of the iceberg of progress I made yesterday.

Plans for this week - well, I guess there's a foundation being set tomorrow. Mike still needs to install the vanity light in the new bathroom along with some other small bits that we need to hit the home depot for. (Outlets, covers, a multi-function switch for the fan, light bulbs...) Then there's the completion of that drywall so we can hang both doors, nevermind the complete and utter destruction of the upstairs bathroom. That's going on video. And I'm going to be a part of it no matter what. Just give me a respirator and a hammer. It's going to be smashing!

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