Vitafamiliae

Convalescing around a pregnant woman who is nesting is… pointless. She’ll find some way to drag you into her web of frenzied work. Case in point:

Andrew had the stomach bug over the weekend. Usually, he gets up too soon and then has a relapse. So he promised me that he would take the day off work today and just sit around and hang with us. A very wise idea. In theory.

We took the morning to chill (I don’t do mornings well anyway) and to be reminded by our children why they need parents in the first place: so they don’t do stupid stuff. After a morning of stupid stuff, we wanted to remove some of the kids’ toys as punishment, but they’d gotten so out of hand lately, we didn’t know where to start.

Dum-da-da-dummmmmmm! Crazy Pregnant Lady to the rescue!

Andrew could tell I was getting revved up for nesting before lunch time. I started futzing around with the Scooba and Roomba, putting them to work in all corners of the house. I made the kids a warm lunch (something I NEVER do) and was huffing and puffing my way around the kitchen straight up til nap time. Andrew managed to get me to sit and rest until the kids got up. Then I took a walk in the neighborhood, went to the chiropractor, and came home ready to RUMMMMBBBBLLLEEEE.

We started with Personal Hygiene Day at the House of Vitafam. Haircuts for everyone! Then baths. Then we learned about the joys of Q-tips. And then we cut nails. And for the first time since he was nine months old, Sam didn’t scream bloody murder when I cut his toenails. My boy has become a man…

We set the boys to work on emptying their closet of the boxes of toys we keep there. They pushed them to the top of the stairs and Andrew carried them down. I made dinner while Ellen sat on the counter with me and chatted. She loved being able to see and was completely enraged when Andrew got her down.

I managed to cook a balanced meal for once and I guess it was a success since Ellen ate four helpings. (As a sidenote, Adam ate two helpings of corn and three helpings of broccoli. No noodles and meat for him. My little vegetarian…)

After dinner, we laid all the boxes out in the toy room. When we moved into this house, my sister sorted all the kids’ toys into separate boxes. They are allowed one or two boxes a day. They have a few random toys in the toy box and that is all. Only things had gotten a bit… out of hand. The toy box hadn’t been closed in months and most of the various boxes were all but empty.

I sat on my exercise ball and Andrew sat next to me with a big trash bag. We pulled toys out of the toy box and sent the kids scurrying to all the various boxes with the proper items. Two giant trash bags and an hour and a half later, we’d re-sorted all the toys, vacuumed out the toy box, managed to close the lid, and re-loaded the boys’ closet with various boxes of toys.

Andrew was a bit green about the gills when we were done. He’d hefted no less than twelve boxes up and down the stairs. I went easy on him since he’d been sick… (I’m kidding. He did it all without a complaint and there was no going easy on him. Either he carried it or I did. And while a fall might have helped me go into labor, neither one of us are interested in repeating that little scenario this time around.)

Now the kids are in bed and Andrew and I are in our respective chairs. Andrew will go to work tomorrow where no one will bug him to come dust some light fixture or find the vacuum cleaner bags. And I’ve checked everything that has to be done off my nesting list. I’m caught up on laundry, Willa’s room is ready, my bags are packed, we’ve done the toys, we’ve cleaned out Ellen’s closet…

You know what this means, don’t you? It means Willa will wait and come next week, when someone else has the stomach bug, there’s mounds of laundry piled in front of my washer, and there’s not a bit of food in the house. And I’ll be just as glad to see her then as I would tomorrow.

Although I’m pretty sure Andrew’s hoping for tomorrow, just so he can get some rest…