I have five weeks until my due date and something crazy happened in my head once this countdown began on Monday. Five weeks feels like it might go very quickly. Five weeks makes me feel like we should have a crib set up. Five weeks makes me feel like we should have the nursery windows replaced and the room painted. It feels like if this baby were to arrive sooner than five weeks, this prepared, organized mama would not be ready.
It is amazing how this sort of panic shows itself in a pregnant woman. Every bit of this anxiety seems to come out directly at my husband. And he may or may not find these worries and demands to be
naggy, a bit irrational and lacking in patience. But he is kind and loving and, thankfully, has a pretty good sense of humor about my crazy ways.
For example, on Monday, Rory found me in a heap on the couch crying about how I wish I could just do these projects for the nursery on my own. I have a good track record for getting things done: I painted the entire basement by myself. I painted the porch by myself too. But being pregnant, I am just too tired, get overwhelmed so easily and probably shouldn't breathe the paint anyway. But I'm left feeling so unable and I
hate that feeling. It makes me grumpy.
When Rory found me on the couch, he laughed and said, "You were so quiet up here, I knew you were either sound asleep or crying sadly to yourself." Which made me cry some more. Sadly. To myself.
But while I was crying, he got up and proceeded to empty the room that is to be the nursery, wipe down the walls, fill the nail holes, tape the windows and then loaded me into the car with him to run to Home Depot to buy the primer and paint. And yesterday his brother Troy came over and they painted the nursery!
Now I don't believe it was my tantrum that got it done. Rory had this one on the calendar, and he knew he would pull it off. I just needed something to worry about, is all. You have no idea how exhausting it is to be this emotional all the time. Because now that it is done, I walk into that room every 20 minutes, tearing up for totally different reasons, dreaming of all the memories that are soon to fill that special space. Rory has taken note of this very manic mood change and I do believe he is just bracing himself for whatever extreme emotion comes next.
We were going for a very, very light, white grey paint color. And the sample really looked like it would be that color. But it is definitely a powder blue in direct sunlight, and a more true baby blue with lamp light on it at night time. But it works. And every time Rory walks into the room he says, "yeah, it's definitely pastel blue. But it's perfect for a baby."
All this to say: 1) the nursery is painted! 2) I'm a crazy lady 3) pray for Rory. He's married to an unpredictable train wreck at the moment. But I'm pretty sure that his pleasant wife is still around here somewhere...she's bound to come back at some point.