People with Housekeepers Have It Maid

My house is never cleaner than it is right before I'm about to have a baby. I'm not talking about your standard dusting and vacuuming and mopping; I'm talking about an all-out, floor-to-ceiling scrubdown.

I hate to use the term "nesting" (if you've been around for a while, you'll know how much I dislike that word). I prefer to call it "the uncontrollable urge to get the joint super-clean before we have company so they'll be under the impression that it always looks this way." Because infants? They don't care so much about whether the inside of your microwave is splattered with some kind of unidentifiable orange crust. Or how dusty your ceiling fans are even though you just cleaned them like four months a few weeks ago. But along with infants come houseguests - especially when, like ours, your extended families live in another state. And I don't want any of those houseguests to come along and be all, "Oh my gosh. I was going to warm up this cup of tea but just look at this microwave ..."

So I've been making my (huge, waddly) way through the house, gradually attending to the stuff that hardly ever gets attention. Rearranging closets. Scrubbing out the insides of trash cans. Bleaching shower curtain liners. Washing shower curtains. Washing window curtains. Cleaning the aforementioned orange crust out of the microwave. Polishing light fixtures. Wiping down the top of the fridge. Disinfecting my silverware drawer. (I know. That's probably bordering on excessive.)

I've been standing on chairs and counters for days. My shoulders ache from constant scrubbing and reaching motions. And it's maddening. Because I see a spot of dirt, or a cobweb, and I must get it. It becomes an obsession. And y'all? We have cathedral ceilings in some places in our house.  *groan*

I wish I could stop. But it's a mission. A quest. (And, okay, a mild form of insanity.) Yesterday, I started washing the walls ... all of them.

You don't fully realize how grubby your walls are (or is it just mine?) until you start cleaning them. And then once you start cleaning them, you can't stop because check this out:

See the difference? It took a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (extra-strong!) to make me realize that holy balls my walls are filthy! Ugh!

I mean, yeah, we've lived here for nearly five years and I've never actually cleaned them before. But still. Who cleans walls?

Oh yeah, me. When I'm pregnant.

Since this is my last baby, they may never be clean again.