Nesting has officially begun. After spending a few days feeling sorry for myself and my ever-decreasing ability to walk without a waddle, I have regained control.
Waking up on Friday morning I decided that I needed to go shopping for new pillows and a duvet. Not only this, but I should also change all the beds in the house, do four loads of washing, hoover out the car and clean the bathroom. Next on the to-do list was taking down and re-hanging three pairs of curtains. Despite the fact that this task was complicated by needing to provide Lyla with her own box of curtain hooks to play with, nothing seemed to be able to exhaust my boundless energy. Still highly charged at 10.30pm it suddenly occurred to me that another ‘essential’ job must be completed – now really was the time to clean out the inside of my make-up bag.
After tossing and turning all night from what felt like the effects of pure adrenaline racing through my body, Lyla woke up at 7.10am. As Chris sleepily stirred, desperate for a lie-in after a manic week at work I leapt from the bed, thrilled to have a reason to be busy again. This was compounded by being super excited for my baby shower later that day. Having put my hair up and spent a good hour carefully selecting and applying as many MAC products that could be deemed socially acceptable, I decided to have an espresso to keep me going. Not sure anyone needed me to become any more hyper but never mind.
The afternoon’s events kicked off in style with my friend Faye arriving from London bringing a brand new post-baby outfit; a gorgeous nude pink silky top with black bow trim, a pair of leggings and a beautiful waterfall front stripy cardigan. Following a good dose of hysteria and girly gossip we headed to our friend Beth’s house to be greeted with a fabulous spread of cakes and non-alcoholic mojitos. As we marvelled at the yummy mini quiches our co-hostess Jane had baked we settled down for some games of guess the weight, name and sex of the baby. A particular highlight was the baby’s future godmother Becky predicting that I’d go into labour in Marks and Spencer, overlooked by Robson Green. While it has become a running joke that I have seen him in my local town rather a lot recently, this is not exactly my ideal birth plan – a sentiment echoed by my fellow mummy-to-be Katie, as we sat on the sofa with our faces aghast.
Arriving home I finally crashed, slurring thank-yous to my sister for such a lovely afternoon and making a mental note to text the girls. Slumped in front of the TV I did wonder if this was the early signs of baby wanting to make a move. But if my manic energy was to be an indication of imminent labour, my one question is, how long should I keep my false eyelashes on for?