Home Scenes

I think about house projects so much lately-- what corner I want to attack next, what needs painted, what needs cleaned, where to move things around. I suppose it's a nesting instinct, but despite the fact that this is my fourth baby, it's the first time this bug has bit.

What has plagued me in pregnancies past is a wave of anti-social tendencies coupled with a sadness over my lack of social engagements. It's a strange and confusing combination of forces. Basically, I don't particularly want to make plans. What I want to do is burrow into my hole and think about all the ways I can make said hole cozier and cuter.  But then it occurs to me that I'm not seeing my friends, and I worry that maybe, somehow, I managed to lose all my friends. I convince myself that this pregnancy completely and profoundly changed my basic personality, and I am no longer a raving extrovert. I worry that I have become family-centric homebody who still possesses a great deal of fear of missing out.

However, I have been down this anti-social path. I have crossed this introverted bridge. I am certain that in a few months, long as those months may seem, I will suddenly remember that I like going places on weekends. I will simultaneously forget all the little tasks I had hoped to accomplish around the house, I will be back to the non-baby bearing me, a woman who is less productive, but quite frankly, more fun.

This weekend we have plans, and I am equal parts excited and prematurely exhausted. 

The first winter cold has found its first victim. Gus coughs and complains, and I let the clean dishes from last night's birthday dinner remain on the counter so that I can sit with him and watch a movie in the waning afternoon sunlight. I reheat leftovers and send Tom and Sena to the library for provisions for a storm that exists only in my imagination. A few flurries this afternoon leaves me wanting a real storm,  an unexpected day off with my kids by my side, books and DVD's piled by our side. 

However, I do want to go to all the places and see all the people- a sleepover at my sister's farm on Friday and a night out sans kids on Saturday.  But still, the thought of sleeping in overwhelms me. Sometimes when I start to feel deprived of sleep, I start to pick off plans one by one, so that I can fall asleep early, stay asleep late. However, the busy weekend leads into the last week of school before a two week break, so imaginary storm or not, there is rest in my future, or so I tell myself. And there will be time for the projects that dance through my head like sugar plum fairies. And if there isn't time, it's because they just weren't that important. 

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