Please tell me this is an early sign of labor

I just spent forty minutes on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor.  I am proud to report that I finally conquered the mysterious sticky substance at the base of the refrigerator that has become ossified with grime and hair (and not OUR hair, which is pretty gross if you ask me).  I have done a room a day this week and if our baby came tonight he’d come home to a clean (ish–remember, the dirt and hair that comes with dog ownership is neverending) if not sanitized house.  I was reading a really good and interesting book for the modernism chapter of the dissertation and despite its engaging qualities and readability–it’s not simplistic conceptually but incredibly well-written–I just couldn’t stop thinking about the kitchen floor.  I had planned to mop it as usual but I was daydreaming about really getting in there and cleaning every crevice.  The hands-and-knees position is reportedly good for late pregnancy, at any rate.  Finally I put the book down twenty minutes early to my appointed stopping time–I normally read for an hour at a time and take fifteen minutes for housework–and got down to business in the kitchen.  My hands are, as I predicted, achy and numb, but I am HAPPY.  I am also certifiably crazy.

The truth is that my world is very small at the moment.  I think about three things most of the time: our home, our baby, and mid-century Irish poetry.  Everything else seems to float in this vague cloud over to the left.  I try to look at that cloud from time to time out of obligation, but it doesn’t engage me.  I have six rooms in my life right now, and I am content to move in and out of them.  At the end of the day I do need some mental release, but a short trip to Target for more milk or just to look at lights and colors usually does the trick.  If I could still take walks that would do just fine.  I am also not very lonely, which surprises me.  The dogs provide companionship, entertainment, and protection during the day, and are fodder for conversation with Attic Man at night as I regale him with tales of their shananigans.

I never expected to be this content at home. Maybe it will be different when the baby comes, maybe not.  I think I’d go insane, really insane, without my scholarly life, which may be the biggest part of my contentedness.  But I had that before, and I never remember being this happy with staying at home before our move to Iowa.  Almost every day I thank Attic Man for going to work and for being so diligent about finding a full-time job.  I understand more now than I ever did the sacrifices he has made not just for his family but for my career, which does nothing for him whatsoever.  I’ve been thinking about the feminist implications of these choices and sacrifices for sure–but at bottom, at this juncture, I am deeply appreciative.  I’ll have a chance to return the favor, I’m sure.

So I’m sorry if what I’m writing isn’t relavent in a larger sense–it’s not that I haven’t been keeping track of that cloud.  I just have to clean floors on my hands and knees right now.