Welcome 2018! I’m liking you already!
“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Speaking of never… I’ve never seen my husband “nesting” in any of my 2 other pregnancies, except for this one, which makes me think that we are having a boy. (Of course there are other factors that made me think it’s a boy like how I am carrying this baby, my cravings, the shape of my belly according to my family and other people, etc. However, my husband still thinks we are having another girl! In 6 more weeks we will soon find out and we can’t hardly wait!).
A week ago, just before Walmart closed their doors for New Year’s eve, I asked my husband to run and get some whole milk for the girls and some other things we were running low of. The list was short. Probably just 5 items. When he came home, I was folding clothes, so he put the groceries away. Later that night, when I went to the kitchen to grab something, I saw a huge box sitting in the living room. The lights were off so I wasn’t sure what it was. In the dark, it looked like a vacuum cleaner. I was puzzled. And then he told me he bought a carpet cleaner.
A carpet cleaner?
Before I could react, he said it was on sale. I really don’t know what has got into him. He’s not the kind of person who cares much if our house is tidy or not. I’m the one who nags the girls (and him) when they don’t put their shoes away or when they leave stuff all over the place.
It’s not as if we really need to deep clean the carpet. Our carpet looks great despite having 2 little ones. I try to spot clean it and we do vacuum once a week or every other week depending on how things are. So it’s really in great shape!
Anyway, I thought it was just one of those purchases that would sit in the box for a while. But he opened the box and read the manual the next day. “I am already liking how this year is turning out”, I thought to myself.
On January 1st, while my toddler and I baked some cookies to give to our neighbors, my husband moved all our living room furniture out of the living room and put them all into the dining area. When the dining room got too full, he moved some furniture into other rooms. And then he vacuumed the carpet first before meticulously running the carpet cleaner on the carpeted floor upstairs. I took some pictures of this momentous occasion while he wasn’t looking. This is just way too cute not to be documented. (Let me share one with you right now).
The drying time was 3 hours so we left the living room empty and watched a movie in our family room downstairs.
It was around midnight when we started putting all the furniture back. (Since we recently just got back from our trip to Nevada to visit my family, midnight still felt like 9 PM for us. The time change had been challenging not just for him and I, but even for the girls. Just before the movie was over and before we could put everything back to the way they were, our girls woke up and started running around our empty living room like energizer bunnies that kept going. We were glad that both winded down after we got all the furniture back into place).
I never asked my husband how much he paid for the carpet cleaner. Whatever the price was, it was worth it!
Our carpet already looked great before, but now, it looks amazing! I love seeing how spotless and brighter it is! The best part was, I didn’t even have to do a thing!
I teased him a few times that he was “nesting”. It was kind of cute actually seeing him this way as I have not seen this part of him before. I guess there’s always a first time for everything!
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you too are liking the start of your 2018!
<3 Zhi
