Nesting is No Joke

I hadn’t had a day (or even necessarily a moment) I would describe as “hormonal” until yesterday. I began the day agonizing over our trip to the grocery store the day before; Minh had gotten frustrated that I was taking a long time looking at kitchen utensils when he just wanted to grab a couple ingredients for lunch. Around noon, I decided to take a nap to distract myself from my distress, but Minh was playing his computer game too loudly. I had suddenly become hyperaware of the fact that my life is just so hard and the world is conspiring against me.

Minh rushed into the bedroom and attempted to calm me down as I sobbed hysterically about how mean he was being for being mad at me in the grocery store and playing his game at such an inconsiderate volume. He suggested that we count as a form of distraction, but for some reason the number 16 is just really sad and therefore that endeavor failed miserably. Cheerfully, he recommended we watch the remainder of The Jungle Book, which we started watching the night before (but I was too tired to finish). Thankfully, talking animals are the perfect diversion for a moody preggo.

After The Jungle Book, I sauntered into the kitchen. Minh had left an empty jug of sweet tea on the counter, which was absolutely unacceptable and obviously meant that he was intentionally disrespecting me as a person. I retreated to the living room to escape the madness, when I noticed a wad of Kleenexes balled up on the ottoman. I could feel the tears building up before I realized that those were actually my Kleenexes from when I was crying earlier.

I had become progressively more aware of the neglected state of the house the past couple weeks. Although I hadn’t gained back the energy to clean much beyond maintaining the dishwasher, the hair on the bathroom counters and spiderwebs along the baseboards had become less ignorable. Enough was enough. This house needed to be cleaned. It was time.

I always thought of the act of “nesting” was more of a relaxing undertaking; my impression of a nesting woman would comprise of a cute mother-to-be arranging the stuffed animals in her baby’s nursery while chanting kumbaya. In reality, my energy to decontaminate the house was fueled by a burning panic of raising my offspring in a cesspool of his parents’ filth. As I tidied each room, I couldn’t clean fast enough — I felt like I was scrubbing the floors of a mansion with a toothbrush. I imagined my innocent baby learning to roll over for the first time and the horror of his revealed stomach resembling an everything bagel. My task was insurmountable and needed to be done now, and the frustration that our house would never be as spotless as the day we moved in caused me to plop down on the floor like a toddler and whine-scream a couple times.

After several hours of nonstop cleaning, Minh somehow convinced me to just finish scrubbing the toilets and then finish for the day. By that point, I had acquired a sharp pain in my chest that had originally only hurt when I bent over to pick up the dustpan, but by the end of my cleaning rampage the pain had intensified and only lessened when I laid flat on my back with my arms at my sides. I spent the rest of the evening imitating a board on the couch, watching season three of Broad City and appreciating the distinct pitter-patter of Leon’s tiny legs probably playing Dance Dance Revolution against my cervix.

While I thankfully feel “normal” (i.e., less of a hormonal lunatic) today, I’m still just as bothered by the stains on the window sills and the water spots on the bathroom sinks. But I guess that’s for next weekend.