Bring on the nesting!

I have recently returned from a jam-packed visit to Charleston, SC.  During my five days there, I got our taxes filed (Thank You IRS!), celebrated my fabulous friend, Jessica's (love and miss you!), birthday downtown at Hall's Chophouse (YUM!), loved on precious Camilla, Jessica's daughter (Frankie's BFF!) enjoyed Sunday brunch at Poogan's Porch (More Yumminess!) with the beautiful spouses of the 16 AS at Charleston AFB (So great to see you all!), visited old neighbors on good ol' Blackwater Dr. (Miss you all dearly!), met with our property manager to survey the damage done to our beautiful home there over the course of the previous six months and two tenants (Thankfully it was minimal!), met with three realtors to discuss the possibility of selling said home (You want me to list it for what?! Not likely!), visited my old OB/GYN (Wishing she was delivering baby #4!), and shopped Teal like I haven't been out of the house in a year (Still awaiting the arrival of the medium-sized moving box full of my goodies that cost me over $60 to ship!). Whew!  What a trip!

I am now home for the duration of pregnancy #4.  I took this past trip a bit against my health care provider's wishes as he thought I needed to stay home to rest and "nest."  What exactly is that?!  (I am now seeing midwives who seem to have a bit more realistic understanding of my particular situation.)  So, here I sit at 12:33 a.m. having just finished paying bills online, picking up my house, finalizing details for Francesca and Sophia's joint 1st and 5th birthday parties, buying the remaining birthday presents I still "need" to get the girls online, and finding pictures in magazines of how I want my flower pots to look for the Spring.  This was after a day of taking Sophia and Asher to preschool and attending chapel with them, going to get lab work done, scurrying around to pick up all the toys and random stuff for the cleaning crew that thankfully comes to my house once every two weeks, dropping off party decorations to the venue for Saturday's party, picking the kids up from school, making everyone lunch, spending an hour and a half trying to Skype with my wonderful husband which resulted in about 20 minutes of actual talk time due to a crappy Internet connection in the Middle East, celebrating Frankie's 1st birthday with cinnamon rolls at breakfast and cake and presents after dinner while trying to get just one decent picture to post for family and friends, bathing the kids in my jetted tub because they wanted a "bubble cave," reading more books than I care to about Fancy Nancy's latest escapades and dinosaurs (why do all of their names have to be so hard to pronounce?!), playing "Bear" while Asher stabbed me with a plastic sword, and trying to take videos of Francesca walking to post on You Tube so that her daddy can see her latest milestone from halfway around the world.

I mean, does some lucky pregnant woman out there actually get to "nest?"  I envision a perfectly groomed pregnant lady sitting in a nursery that is fully furnished and decorated to the nines folding baby clothes that have been carefully pre-washed in Dreft to place in the unmarred, brand new dresser as she listens to soothing music and banters back and forth with her husband who is sitting in the next room.  She has a content smile on her face as she thinks about how wonderful the arrival of her new baby will be, how, somehow, her labor won't be "that bad," and this beautiful nursery in which she sits will somehow remain clean and tidy.  Little does she know that in less than five years she could be me!  HA!  Wouldn't that ruin her day (and her clean and tidy daydreams)?!

My "nesting" is all of the aforementioned activity and then some!  But, I wouldn't have it any other way! I don't know any differently and would probably feel bored and empty if my experience more closely mirrored the fictitious pregnant woman I described.  The cloud of chaos that seems to fill each of my days and drain me completely also, somehow, keeps me going.  I am pushed to my brink on a mental, physical, and emotional level virtually daily only to fall in bed exhausted and get up to do it again the next day.

Ironically, the Bible verse that the kids learned in chapel this morning was "The joy of the Lord is my strength."  That is the only explanation I can come up with.  I mean, how do we do what we do when what we do is simply NUTS?!  The Lord brought me and my (deployed, pain-in-the-butt-sometimes, but man-do-I-love-him) husband together and gave us our 3 (and a half) curious, intelligent, and why-again-shouldn't-I-spank?? children, but He didn't stop there.  He also gives me joy.  Pure, unlimited joy.  Joy that I couldn't possibly know without Him!  Joy that my husband, my children, my friends, and all the other people and things that fill my days and require my time and attention bring into my life.  THAT is my strength.  And THAT I need to remember.  DAILY!

So, I am okay with the fact that I most likely won't have my insanely placid nesting description, because I have something WAY better!