Nesting slippers

Let me tell you a story about these slippers.

Almost exactly one year ago, I started my maternity leave and found myself face to face with large amounts of wide open free time before my little dude arrived. I spent the bulk of this time on a bizarre mission for the perfect pair of slippers. My packing list for the hospital was complete except for the slippers. "Bring slippers!" everyone said. "Slippers! (and a shitload of other stuff I'll NEVER EVER need)," all the online lists from mommy bloggers proclaimed. But I had no slippers. When I imagined myself shuffling down the hospital hallways, bent over and trying to walk through contractions, I was most definitely wearing a cute pair of slippers, not some thin hospital-issue ankle socks with the grippies on the bottom.

Clearly, I was not going to be able to birth a child without slippers.

But I had very specific criteria for the perfect slippers: they couldn't be made from any weird polyester, which would make my feet sweaty and uncomfortable; they couldn't be fluffy or furry; and they had to be cute. And under $30. I went to every department store and mall within 30 minutes of my home. I hauled my 40-week belly from store to store, but everything was wrong. SO WRONG! Too fluffy. Too pink. Too polyester. Too expensive.

One particular trip to Target, very very near my due date (in fact, I think it might have been ON my actual due date), was particularly memorable. I walked into the store, and all of a sudden I felt a rush of warmth and "fuzziness." I truly felt like I was in some sort of half-asleep dreamland. I was there looking for slippers, but I ended up buying a bunch of weird impulsive stuff that we didn't really need. Like that goofy bottle drying rack that looks like grass (which actually tuned out to be AWESOME), and some bed sheets with snowflakes on them that didn't match anything in our bedroom. I think I got a doormat, too. Seriously?

Looking back, I think this was the start of baby's long slow journey into this world. That warm fuzzy feeling was probably a rush of oxytocin signaling my body to get things moving, already. I went into labor later that week, and after he was born I got that exact same woozy feeling every time I nursed him during the first few weeks. Oxytocin, yo. That's some potent stuff.

But back to the slippers. I never did find a pair in any store, so I took to the interwebs. After, not even joking, hours of slipper-hunting online, I finally found the perfect pair of Smartwool slippers. Made of real wool! On clearance! And relatively cute! But at that point I was actually scheduled for an induction in a few days (turned out I wouldn't need it, anyways), and I knew that my precious slippers wouldn't make it to my doorstep in time. I had pretty much let go of my vision of laboring in the perfect goddamn slippers and just wanted that baby OUT OUT OUT. But certainly I would need slippers for the days and weeks after, while I blissfully nursed my baby in a warm bed, propped up by pillows while sipping tea and resting HA HA HA HA.

I never once needed a pair of slippers during my time in the hospital. I never even thought about slippers, and when they did arrive, I really didn't care anymore. But I've gotta say that afterwards, once I was finally up and getting around, they were really great slippers. And still are.

I guess some women scrub their floors or clean their stoves. Apparently, my form of nesting was to think about slippers nonstop and do weird shopping at Target. So now, whenever I wear them and look down, I laugh at what an insane person I became in those final days of pregnancy. They're a good memory.