Nesting

I'm exhausted. Not that I have done anything remotely useful, nor do I have any biological role to play in these final days of my lovely wife's pregnancy. Nope. I haven't really done a damn thing. But watching her, just watching her, I'm exhausted and soon heading back to bed.

My wife is currently nesting. Actively, at this very moment, at every moment, she is nesting away. In fact she just surrounded me with a variety of bottles each accompanied by pale blue and green instruction booklets with moist lilies pictured on the front pages. I am to read these booklets, along with pages 12-26 of "What to Expect: the First Year", page 135 of "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth", pages 46-58 of "Birth" (complete with hair-raising illustrations), pages 32 and 74 of "Breathing Through Pregnancy", and so much more. But I digress.

She is nesting. I awoke this morning, as I awake every morning to the sound of the buzzer and a loud groan. The buzzer is the postman with another package and the groan is mine. I stumble to the door with my pants on backwards, greet the postman, discuss the weather for twelve seconds and retreat into my flat. This happens every day.

Fortunately my body is well trained to make coffee. As I stood staring at the trembling kettle this morning, I could hear the packages being ripped open, the content of each greeted with a few curt comments (no Yankees gear this time, thank god), and then the footsteps coming toward me. I steeled myself for conversation. My lovely pregnant wife entered the kitchen with a toolbox and a few round wooden discs. She ignored me, and I maintained eye contact with my kettle. She began emptying the shelves in the cabinets with a certainty that said: men are a lazy and useless bunch. Frightened, I stirred my coffee and muttered, "Why don't you let me do that?" She began to hammer.

So my 9 month pregnant wife installed a lazy Susan on a shelf above her head this morning. After this, she vacuumed the flat, rearranged the contents of the refrigerator, made a loaf of bread (currently in the oven), polished the faucet, updated her address book, wrote two letters (which somehow involved scissors and paste), wiped down the kitchen cabinets, and is now in the other room producing sounds that suggest she is soldering the door hinges.

The worst part is that I have sworn to handle all the household chores over the next 72 hours. Well, I have just about finished my coffee and will be of service in a few minutes. Oh damn, I need to read these instruction booklets... I'll take a quick nap first. She'll understand.