#Nesting

#Nesting

“Mooom!” my five-year-old cried. “We are trying to go to sleep!”

“I’m almost done.”

My husband said, “Do you really need to do that right now?”

“Yes,” I replied. “If I go into labor tonight, I want to know the carpet’s vacuumed.”

My husband worked at keeping a straight face. “Of course,” he said.

But it didn’t stop there. After tucking the kids in bed, I swept the floor, folded laundry, washed the cookie trays from the double batch of granola I’d made earlier, and wrote thank-you cards.

At nine, my husband said he was going to bed, but I was not tired. I was consumed with a preternatural energy that propelled me through my list, as if I couldn’t give birth until every item was checked off.

This nesting phenomenon first started about a month ago, when I came out of the pantry wielding a steam mop.

My husband looked up from his computer. “Really, Honey? You’re going to mop at 9 p.m.?”

I reluctantly put the steam mop back in the pantry, but only because I didn’t want the hissing sound to wake the kids.

Nesting also means that—well, I am a little like a predatory mama bird who is very protective of her nest. On Wednesday, around 8 a.m., I heard the neighbor across the creek using a chainsaw. No big deal. People are allowed to chop wood to keep them warm through Tennessee’s harsh 60 degree winters. But then I started hearing larger equipment, along with the sound of cracking trees.

To me, a tree succumbing to the brute force of man is one of the worst sounds in the world. It makes my chest grow tight, my heart pound, sweat break out on my palms. Plus, it sounded like the man was chopping down all the trees right near our creek.

Thankfully, it was library/park/splash-pad day with my girls, so I packed our lunches, gathered our books and towels, and loaded everything and everyone up in the minivan, believing that the chopping would be over by the time I returned.

Surprise, surprise, it wasn’t. My husband was working in the warehouse, so I marched over to him and said, “What are they doing?!”

He said, “They’re logging.”

“They’re logging!?”

He nodded.

“Do we even deserve to be on this planet?!”

He looked down, trying to hide his wry smile, but failed. “And yet you like to live in a wooden house.”

“No,” I said. “I now would prefer to live in an adobe hut.”

“They’re not clear-cutting,” he said. “They’re probably just taking the large trees. It’s proper forest management to remove the larger trees every ten years because otherwise they shade out the rest.”

I was not convinced. I told the girls to stay with their father and trekked off across our yard and down the hill, my nine-month-pregnant belly swaying to the metronome of my wrath.

I’m not quite sure what I expected: maybe that my beloved creek would be dammed up with splintered wood, or that the forest would be stripped bare except for the ragged stumps and detritus of the trees, which would be left to rot season after season—all of which I’ve seen before.

Instead, I could barely see a difference, and I didn’t think that was due to being near-sighted. There were a few gaps up in the woods that allowed the spring light to fall down to the floor. But beyond that, there was nothing. It almost looked better, in fact. So, I dropped my balled hands from my hips and remained on my side of the creek.

I’ve thought a lot today about my nesting spree and my irrational anger when it came to my neighbor cutting down the trees that were on his own property. When it gets right down to it, it’s because—as I draw closer and closer to my due date—I am yearning more and more to remain in control.

But birth—like life—is often beyond our control, and the only way we can find supernatural peace is by surrendering to the fact that God is the one who put this baby in my belly, who allowed that tree in the forest to take root, who caused this beautiful blue/green earth to spin in space, and who knows exactly when that breath will begin or end, the tree will fall, and the earth will stop spinning. If we simply relinquish our impotence, it takes the pressure off our day to day lives.

So, I’m not going to go trekking down the hill this week to accost any loggers. But I might—just might—have to steam mop my floor.

How about you? Do you find yourself trying to maintain a sense of order when life is beyond your control?

In honor of Mother’s Day, and the fact that I could give birth to our third little girl any time now, I’ve decided to do a giveaway of the autographed, hardcover edition of The Alliance and The Divide (officially releasing June 6th)! To enter, visit my Facebook author page.