Nesting phase creates safe haven amid mess

Well, I've officially entered the nesting phase of my pregnancy, which means at any given moment you can catch my husband staring at me with a look of bewilderment.

Take, for example, when he came home last week and the house was in utter chaos. I'm talking about one of those days when there are three days worth of dishes in the sink, confetti eggs scattered about the carpet and spaghetti sauce inexplicably spilled on the floor when we haven't had spaghetti in more than a week. It was one of those days.

Amid this disaster we call life, my husband found me neatly folding onesies and sleepers for our baby girl who is due this summer. I had gotten out our older daughter's old clothes boxes and was taking inventory on what we needed to be prepared for our new addition.

"What are you doing?" he asked, trying to ignore the piles of clothes I had added to the mess of our home.

"Oh, I think I'm starting my nesting phase. I had an uncontrollable urge to organize the baby clothes," I replied while neatly folding another newborn onesie.

At this, my husband's eyes grew large as he made a quick scan of the rest of the house. "Umm … could you maybe do your nesting phase by actually cleaning the nest?"

As you can imagine, this did not go over well with me. I won't go into details, but there may have been some tears and a projectile onesie.

In my husband's defense, he is a man. OK, I'm not sure that is actually a defense, but in this case it is an explanation. Men don't get pregnant women — at all. And they definitely don't understand the nesting urge.

My husband had the same trouble understanding this biological instinct in women to prepare "the nest" prior to bringing baby home when I was pregnant with our first daughter. He came home one day to find me nine months pregnant and teetering on my tiptoes on the ledge of our kitchen counter.

I had to clean the tops of those kitchen cabinets. I just knew there was dust up there lurking that could one day fly into the air and into my newborn baby's lungs.

I also felt compelled at one point to clean the tracks of the sliding glass door with a toothpick. I'm still not sure why I did that one, but at the time it seemed really, intensely important not to bring a baby home with dirty door rudders. The horror!

During my first pregnancy, I even went though a home décor stint where I bought a ridiculous number of scented candles for our house. I have since thrown out most of those candles, and my husband still mocks me for what he calls "Candlefest 2007."