Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 26, 1993                   TAG: 9308260112
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Beth Macy
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NESTING JUST SEEMS LIKE THE NATURAL THING TO DO

Now every Friday morning my husband will peer at me over his newspaper like I'm Julie the cruise director and ask with his mouth full of cereal, "Do we have any plans for tonight?"

At which point usually I shrug, take a bite of my Muesli and suggest that new Kenneth Branagh movie I want to see, or the ultimate night out on the town - an $8 dinner for two at K&W Cafeteria, "The Kay-Dub" for short.

I consistently fall asleep before the "Weekend Update" portion of "Saturday Night Live," and the idea of walking into a loud, smoky bar - even if there is good live music - makes me queasy.

Alas, I've become a nester. I like weekends because I can spend hours if I want arranging and then rearranging the various combinations of bric-a-brac on my living room mantel.

I'm excited about fall coming because I can heat up the kitchen again with pies, soups and breads, and not feel guilty about spending a whole day indoors. I like to think about sewing curtains and chair cushions. I don't actually like to sew curtains and chair cushions, understand, but I do like to think about the possibility.

For me, nesting makes life more secure. There's something comforting about seeing my favorite quilted pillow on the couch, about the blanket being draped over the back of the chair at that perfect angle, just so.

I've experienced a surge of nesting recently, which culminated in taking an entire week of my vacation time to consider slipcovers and wall paint, and buy fabric for a valance - a word I didn't even know a year ago.

Then there was the new couch, the ultimate icon of comfort, and all the heady decisions surrounding that: To Fabri-coate or not? And if so, should the dog still be allowed to curl up on top? (He thinks he should.)

The nesting surge can be attributed, I suppose, to my three-month-and-counting condition, with early side effects including my husband's uncontrollable urge to sing that awful Paul Anka song, "You're Having My Baby," which would give anyone morning sickness. Current side effects include rarely washing my shorts _ so they'll still fit _ and the capability to burst out at any moment with my impression of our baby's heartbeat: "sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh ... "

They say the nesting instinct gets even stronger the further along in pregnancy you get. Anna Quindlen, my favorite newspaper columnist, reported arranging fresh-flower bouquets, hanging nursery curtains, shopping for groceries and then cooking lamb chops and a cheese souffle all in a day. Right after the dishes were washed, she went into labor.

She says pregnant women nest because they know in their hearts there will shortly come a time when they'll be too tired to even look up at a valance, let alone think about making one. I nest because it gives me some little measure of control.

Aside from occasionally hearing the joyful sound of "sh-sh-sh," I have no idea what the baby is really doing down there, whether it's healthy, if it's a he or she, or what life will be like once it enters this world.

I can read about it in books. I can ask my friends. I can listen to advice from family and strangers on the street - everybody's got some little suggestion to make. But I can't really understand it until the baby is as real as a cry from the next room.

I know a new couch sounds trivial in the grand scheme of things. But somehow it helps. I can touch it. I can read a book on it and fall asleep. I can curl up on it with my dog, Scooter, and wonder if it's really possible to love a child as much as I love this crazy dog.

We were showing off our new living room to our cousin a few weeks ago. She asked, "You're fixing it all up so your kid can mess it up?"

That's it exactly.

And I can't wait to get started on the nursery. It's Monday morning as I write this, and I've already got my plans for the weekend ironed out: wallpaper patterns, paint samples, color schemes and baby themes.

If I make it through a whole segment of "Weekend Update," I'll let you know.

Beth Macy, a features department staff writer, hasn't had a beer in 3 months. Her column runs Thursdays.