Nesting, Part One: Downstairs

So have I told you my peonies are blooming? When I saw the first one start to flower, it freaked me out just a bit. For months, I've been watching the peonies grow up from the dirt, knowing that once they bloomed, this baby was not far behind.

Um, well, they've bloomed. We never did get around to tying them up, but they're still pretty. See Nick helping me repot plants? Well, mostly he dumped dirt on the sidewalk and tried to steal my scissors.

That brings me to the nesting instinct. This is the urge that pregnant women get to stock up, organize, and get the home ready for the baby. I read somewhere that when the nesting instinct kicks in, a baby is not far behind. For me, that means I only have a few days left. This baby is being born on Thursday, and I'd better be ready. When Nick was born, I was only 37 weeks and I never had the full-fledged urge to organize. Frankly, this urge has got to be biological, because I am normally the least organized person on the planet. But in the last week or so, we've been cleaning and organizing like mad. Starting with my plants. . .

As I've mentioned before, my classroom is a jungle--I believe I had something like 30 plants there this year. Previously, I've just left them in my classroom over the summer and gone in to water them every week or so. There's a very nice janitor who checks on them for me and waters them if they need it, in between visits. However, the roof on my school is being replaced, and I won't be able to get into the building, so all of the plants have to go. Some of them were root-bound pretty badly, so Nick and Grandma Toni and I spend a few hours on Thursday splitting and repotting them. We'll see if they survive.

We got a lot accomplished this week, thanks to that nesting instinct. Greg did a lot of the heavy work--he cleaned out the screened-in porch, installed the car seats, set up my plant stand, found the vibrating bouncy seat, and located/cleaned all of the baby bottles. That's just what he did downstairs!

This may well be the first (and the last) time you ever hear of me voluntarily cleaning out the kitchen cabinets, but I did it. Blame it on the nesting. I started with the one where the baby and toddler stuff is kept.

I put all of Nick's stuff on the left, and the new baby's stuff on the right. The top shelf is for wine, beer, and booze-related items--Greg can darned well reach to the top shelf for those. Notice how I have several kinds of formula stocked. I'm rather proud of my strategy. A couple months ago, when I started going for regular NSTs (non-stress tests) at the OB's office, I grabbed a baby formula sample. The nurse saw me and said, "You know, you can take one of those any time you come in. They bring us more all the time." So I did. I've been grabbing a formula sample during each of my bi or tri-weekly doctor's appointments, and stockpiling them. I have tons more under the counter, too. Several times, I asked the nurses which formula they thought was best. "Take one of each kind," they said. "Then you can decide for yourself." I didn't turn them down.  :)  By the way, I'm going to try to breastfeed again, but I had a breast reduction back in '96, so I will definitely have to supplement with formula.

Then I moved on to my drawers. I wish I'd taken a before picture. This drawer (above) had to be slammed shut each time because there was so much junk in it. I pulled out the whole drawer, washed it, and reorganized everything inside. It is very nice to know where all of my measuring spoons are at the same time. For weeks, I've been doing funny things like measuring 1 1/2 tsp. with a 1/4 tsp. measuring spoon, six times. . . because, you see, I could only find that one spoon.

Onward to the freezer. Greg and I had our cleaning lady come out and scrub the house top to bottom. She cleaned the fridge, pantry, and freezer so that I could stock up. . . and stock up I did! I go to a place called Simply Homemade in Naperville, where I made 17 of my own meals. They filled the freezer, but at least we won't starve in the next few weeks. The brilliant part of this place is that I actually assembled every meal myself, so they'll be home cooked when we make them.

My pantry will only look like this for about a week. I still have more pantry stocking to do, but I'm pretty sure we're good for food. I even made cookies. Okay, those have nothing to do with nesting. I just like cookies.

So Let Me Tell You a Little Story. . .

. . . about a new parenting technique I learned from The Happiest Toddler on the Block, by Harvey Karp. There's this idea for increasing good, or "green light" behaviors, in toddlers, that I really liked when I read it. What you do is whenever your child does something specific that is positive, you give him a little check mark (in pen) on his hand. Then, at the end of the day, you can talk about what each check was for. The idea, of course, is to avoid labels such as "good boy," and to concentrate on praising the actions rather than the child. Nick has responded really well to this, and he loves getting the pen checks and showing them off to everyone. I've been using it only a few days, and it's been pretty successful. Today he got a pen check for helping me pick up the fruit snacks that had fallen on the floor, and another for immediately stopping when I told him to leave the kitty alone. I reminded him what those checks were for several times, and he got a big smile every time I talked about them. There is one problem, however. . .

You see, Nicholas just received some of those Crayola Pipsqueaks markers for Christmas, and he decided (while I was on the phone, I believe) to give himself some checks. Never mind that he was squeaky clean and had just had a bath not one hour before this photo was taken. Look at his right hand, in this picture and the next. Those are really big checks. He must've done something spectacular. Nick also gave himself a moustache. Then he decided the refrigerator would make a really good canvas. . .

Yes, I know there would've been less damage done if I had taken the marker away before going to get my camera. But I hate my refrigerator anyway, and pregnancy horomones have me so messed up lately that all I could do is snap a few pictures, grab that marker, and then sit on the floor laughing. I didn't say a word to him, but I think he got the picture. He stood staring at me for a minute, then looked back at his hand and his refrigerator artwork that needed no magnets. Nick came and sat in my lap and said, (and I quote) "Color on paper ONLY." Yes, Nick. That's the rule.

I do think that I will be putting the markers up for awhile, and only taking them out when I'm closely supervising the action. I noticed later on that my couch covers and the rug under my cocktail table also have some marker stains. Sigh. We'll see if the magic eraser and some Oxy-Clean will do the trick with these stains. One day, if my son is a famous artist, I can use these pictures as proof of his innate creative ability, even from a young age. Or I can look at them and smile.