Week 20

I'm officially at the halfway point of my pregnancy.

After yesterday, and finding out the news that "it" is now a "him," or (preferably) now Isaiah, I feel a certain solidness about life. Not that Nick and I haven't been fully aware of the baby before, but, as I predicted it would for us, knowing the baby's sex has personalized this whole mind-blowing experience for us.

It's also lit something fierce under Nick.

Nick had yesterday off from work. I took the morning off but went in to work in the afternoon and when I came home, the house was gleaming from the inside out. Nick had been working his tail off reorganizing closets, making space in cluttered areas, cleaning, doing laundry, folding and stacking bedware and towels. Any miscellaneous items (usually things like my jewelry, my camera equipment, my chicken scratches on post it notes about appointments and meetings and random ideas) were all placed in a pile in my closet.

"I just feel better when the house is clean," he says.

Not that we live in a pigsty, but our home is fairly tidy. Nick likes tidy. I like disinfectant. It's a good combo.

But I wasn't sure if he said "I just feel better when the house is clean" or "I just feel better when the house GLEAMS."

Because everything is ridiculously tidy and everytime I look at my loving spouse, he's sweating from moving something or bending over into a closet trying to clear out anything that can be thrown away.

Is that Nesting syndrome supposed to happen to the mother? Or is it the father?

I think he's ready to be a Dad...whereas I am just feeling more and more pregnancy-tired with each passing week. My right leg is starting to cramp and my appetite is back on some form of mysterious fluctuation. Monday - Thursday afternoon, I could barely eat a whole meal without feeling like I needed to manually rolled into the living room. I ate three nuggets of cantelope and a glass of milk and feel like I ate a Thanksgiving dinner. Today, I've eaten more than the entire week combined and now I feel like I could do some serious damage at Old Country Buffet.

Week 20 is the halfway point, and not that we ever were thinking of "turning back," it truly is the point of no return. Emotionally, we are just so flipping excited for this kid, we're borderline obnoxious. I can't believe we still have friends sometimes. How can they stand us when we're talking and giddy all the time, thinking about our future like it's a philosophical puzzle to figure out, talking about parenting techniques, thinking about our own childhood - what worked, what we think our parents did right...etc, etc. In sum, we are SATURATED IN THE GLOW OF IMPENDING PARENTHOOD AND WE LOVE IT AND DON'T CARE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK OF US AND OUR OBNOXIOUSLY HAPPY AND GLORIOUS STATE.

You KNOW things are seriously different when father of Big Foot himself says to me yesterday, "What do you think of this? It came in the mail." Nick hands me a turquoise and delicately decorated piece of paper with suggestions of things to buy before the baby's arrival.

Like an up-scale shopping list. In cute fonts.

Nick puts in on my dresser, "I think this might be a good guide of things we'll need to buy, don't you think?"

I just nodded wordlessly, my eyes big and unblinking as I watch him. In my brain, I hear the strains of the Twilight Zone.

Anytime the love of my life, the man who gets a headache from walking into a department store, suggests using a shopping list and actually looks excited about its futility is testament to the transformative power of Baby Isaiah.