A Beautiful Mess

28 Weeks: the start of the 3rd trimester, and also the week when every expecting parent (or at least the ones who read What to Expect When You're Expecting on the eve of the start of a new week) breathes a tiny sigh of relief, because this week is also when they say the baby is "viable" - meaning that if she were born right now, her little lungs would probably be strong enough to sustain her tiny body.  This is not to say that we want her to be born now, though.  Stay in there, baby girl!

With the start of this new trimester, there is also a new sense of anticipation and anxiety.  On Thursday, I stayed a little later at school to get some planning done, only to look outside on my way to the door to discover what could only be one thing -- snow.  I literally stopped walking and just stared.  Snow?! How could there be snow? Now? 

I did not think about the road conditions (which were fine, thankfully). I didn't think about snowmen, or Christmas or even Christmas shopping...I thought about the fact that this baby is a winter baby, and if it's snowing, that means she must be arriving soon.  I nearly cried.  Why?  Well, friends, my house is a disaster, and, in my warped hormone-ridden mind, I wondered how I could, in good conscience, bring a child into the world when my house is this messy. Sometimes I arrive home at the end of the day, see the mail sitting on the counter, dishes in the sink, laundry in the basket waiting to be folded, a bottle of Tums and three half-full glasses of water on the nightstand, a nursery full of gifts waiting to be organized, a stack of half-written thank you notes for said gifts, blankets haphazardly tossed from the couch, forgotten shoes left wherever, and think...

This is what pregnancy really looks like. 

But, life is messy, and for now I'll have to accept that, especially between Monday and Friday, all major cleaning, organizing, updating of fantasy teams (which I refrained from renaming The Fighting Fetuses at the beginning of the season), and sorting of mail will have to wait.  At some point that nesting instinct will kick in, and my house will regain its place on the organization throne. (Right?)