Delayed Reaction

As my original due date approaches, I'm having strange urges. Nothing creepy, just...nesting. I assumed it'd be all gone, taken care of when the birth took place, but what I'm finding is that my internal clock hasn't registered O's arrival yet, and so I'm right on schedule with the unexpected, the subconscious, the instinctive urge to prepare for a new baby.

My linen closets were FLAWLESS homages to Martha Stewart right before M was born, two years ago. Now, I admit that I've had a closet fixation for some time, and that in the Years Before Kids I organized based on length of garment and length of sleeve, in that order, and within those categories based on weight of fabric. I admit this. It's my little OCD secret, but it made me very, very happy. I felt soothed by that level of planning and, let's face it, control. One friend frequently threatened to rearrange my closet when I was out--and it scared me. My books were on the shelf organized by height. My CDs (back when we used CDs) were arranged in alphabetical order and chronological order, in that order, so Van Morrison's Astral Weeks was before Tupelo Honey. The universe made sense.

Then I had children. Our oldest, as a crawler, liked to take the CDs out of their jewel boxes and rub them on the hardwoods. The toddler likes to take books off their shelves and read two pages, then cast aside. With a new baby in the house, I'm grateful I can pull SOMETHING out of the dryer that's been laundered, and have little time to concern myself with keeping the linens on their assigned shelves.

That kind of lax attitude leads to this:

And this:



And, God help us, this:

Dear heaven, the SHAME. I'm really glad my mother doesn't read my blog regularly--maybe by the next time she drops by this will have fallen down to the bottom of the page and she won't notice? I'm generally a very tidy person!! And still would be if it weren't for those meddling kids!

It's time to break out the big guns, people. It's time for Fall Cleaning.

It's like Spring Cleaning, except in the spring it's designed to clear out all the dust and mustiness of the cold weather in preparation for the sun to make its annual return. In the fall, this level of Deep Cleaning is meant to preserve one's sanity over the course of those cold months so that all family members are still alive to SEE the sun return.

My productivity is blocked. I MUST NEST.

I just hope this urge passes once the closets are set to rights. I really, really don't want to clean out the garage.