My nesting obsession continues to haunt me. When my son was born I had absolutely no idea what to expect. This time around I know there is a good chance that I’ll be absolutely exhausted for those first two to three months. Three years ago I exclusively nursed and my son was not a good sleeper, which meant waking up around the clock to feed him. My husband would take on diaper duties and pick him up and hand him over, but the rest of the work was up to me and I was quite frankly exhausted. If I was that tired three years ago with just one kid I cannot imagine how depleted I’ll feel this time around. Everyone tells me the bounce back time is shorter the second time, but I’m not so sure I believe them.
In addition to the typical decluttering, cleaning, nesting compulsions I recently had the wacky idea to pay someone to gut and remodel our basement. Since I’m in the second trimester and filled with a ridiculous amount of energy I decided to take on the sea of plastic containers myself. Demolition won’t actually begin until sometime in late February or early March, but I certainly don’t want to wait until the third semester to begin sorting through stuff and I don’t want to deal with any of the dust and debris that construction might kick up down there.
I’ve located all of the baby related stuff we might need for the first month or two. As I mentioned in a previous post I didn’t keep very many baby clothes in the zero to three month range, but there is a decent amount of baby equipment, blankets and co-sleeper related items hiding down there. I corralled the majority of it, but still need to spend some time sorting through the bins to see what’s really useful.
While I was digging I rummaged through the rest of the basement and purged and organized as much as I could. I can only work on this when my son is in preschool or taking a nap, so while this task may have taken just a week to complete it has actually been a work in progress for the better part of a month.
I donated a lot of things I didn’t love and took more trips to the donation center than I can count. The majority of items remaining are clothes that may or may not be used by our second child. Since the first and second will be born in opposite seasons I’m not certain much will be reused. Part of it will also depend on the height of this baby. My son is unbelievably tall for his age, but if the next one is an average height some of the clothes may actually fit during the appropriate seasons. I got rid of some hand-me-downs that weren’t in the best of shape, but decided to keep everything else a little bit longer. After all, some of this stuff has been hiding out in our basement for over three years, how is a few more months or even another year of storage going to hurt me?
The basement isn’t the only area I’ve tackled. In the midst of my reorganizing I decided to dive into the contents of a very large filing cabinet. That awful metal contraption took up a lot of space in a tiny room and I really wanted it out of there.
I shredded and recycled a small portion of the papers it held then got to work scanning the rest of them. I wish I had one of those ultra fast, high speed scanners at work, where I could load fifty papers and call it a day. Our scanner can only handle one page at a time so this process feels like its taking forever. I’m sure I’ve scanned at least five hundred documents over the past week. I scan as many as I can while my son is napping and I’m happy to see the pile dramatically dwindling. I can now fit all of the remaining papers in one box and the filing cabinet has already made its way out of the house!
Its actually been quite fun to comb through that filing cabinet. Among the treasures are love letters from my husband that were written over eighteen years ago, a postcard from a now deceased friend, piles of notes from my middle school years and a long lost envelope full of stickers I collected as a child. I also found handwritten stories I wrote as a teenager and journals I honestly didn’t remember writing in the first place. I am keeping some of the handwritten mementos and shredding others. With a digital copy available I don’t feel the need to retain all of the originals, but some things are too sentimental to shred.
I’m not finished organizing everything but I can feel the end is near. I still haven’t thought much about the baby’s future room, but I did ask my husband to remove an old dresser so I can make space for the things I’ve dug out of the basement. It’s strange how preoccupied I am with the rest of the house. I am trying to make space for all of the stuff that is about to make its way out of closets and drawers. Before my son was born we had plenty of room for baby swings and bouncy seats. This time the nooks and crannies of our home are filled with toys, which means a lot of things need to be moved out of the way to make space. My next goal is to tackle a toy rotation of sorts. I need to limit the number of toys swelling in our living room, which is also the room where my son plays.
My goal is to be done with this crazy nesting by the time the third trimester begins. Considering we’ll be on vacation when that time comes it seems I have exactly two weeks to finish!
Nice work on the house organization! When I was nesting all I wanted to do was paint the kitchen cabinets and our basement stayed way too crowded!
It sounds like your basement will actually be done within the year, then I’m guessing some of the toys will end up down there and you’ll have some more room to breath, which would be nice.
Almost third trimester, wow!
The plan is definitely to set up a space to play downstairs! I think that will help me keep my sanity and rid my living room of so much clutter š
did you ever post on what car you decided to get? I can’t remember