Nesting

Happy New Year! Yes, I realize it's been weeks since my last post. I wish I could blame carpal tunnel or a Blogger's Strike (I have never been one to cross a picket line!) but sadly, the truth is I've spent the last month either flinging open cupboard doors and wildly organizing everything from socks to serveware, or flopped on the couch watching episode after episode of the Gilmore Girls while surfing the web for baby bargains.

That's right, I'm nesting.

Nesting....it's the frenzied, desperate organizing borne of a pregnant woman's solidly-held belief that unless the house is spotlessly clean, the freezer stocked with a month's worth of healthy meals, and every last onesie washed and neatly folded in Baby Boy Rothman's dresser–all by Week 32– the birth will be terrible, older daughter will run away from home and join a Renaissance Fayre, breastfeeding will be an utter failure and my name and address will appear simultaneously on the booking lists for Nanny 911, Clean House, and Relationship Rehab.

And for a type-A preg-o (comme moi), that's more like 28 weeks.

Of course, there's plenty of time for cleaning and organizing when it's too cold and dark most days to leave the house. It gets light around 8:00 a.m. these days, and dark around 4:30 (much longer, actually, than we've gotten accustomed to). We've all got a bit of the post-holiday blahs, which we're trying to cure with trips into Bristol – to the kids' science center, @Bristol, and the City Museum and Art Gallery – and fun outings around Bath. It's not lost on any of us that these are our last 10-12 remaining weeks as a Gleesome Threesome – so we're taking every opportunity to pop into restaurants for lunch or tea, shop a bit, see a show.

Look at those smiling chumps. Your days as the Three Rothmateers are numbered.

Speaking of shows... we did complete one important British holiday rite of passage: the pantomime. Jeff thought it would be a bunch of English Marcel Marceaux acting out the title story, Aladdin. I thought it might be some kind of musical interpretive dance / tableau. Josie didn't really care as long as Jasmine made an appearance. One would also assume, given its billing as "family fare for all" that it would be relatively short. We were all rather... surprised.

The "Aladdin Panto" was a hot, schlocky mess, filled with cross-dressing English soap stars, lame coalition government jokes, obscure British reality television references, and flatulence. It didn't help that I had accidentally booked us FRONT ROW seats – the band members could look right up our nostrils – so every time there was a special-effect-bang or flash of light, the sparks would blind us, and fragrant firecracker smoke would pour right down our throats. Josie was definitely puzzled to hear a female morning-show-presenter-Aladdin proclaim his/her love for the also double-Xed Jasmine... all set to music in the form of songs by everyone from Queen to Miley Cyrus... beginning with the seemingly unavoidable "Walkin' on Sunshine."

"Aladdin, you've got about as good a chance in getting between Jasmine and her father as between Simon Cowell and a deep-vee T-shirt. Or between David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Or Posh Spice and a silicone jet." (uproarious laughter, except front row left. *crickets*)

And it was three hours long.

Needless to say, at the end of the first act (1:20), we soberly informed Josie that Aladdin, having been imprisoned in a diamond cave by the evil Genie, would just have to stay there until the 2012 sequel. Puzzled, she was nonetheless happily distracted by promises of pizza and ice cream. Methinks we'll save our money for the Nutcracker or some Charles Dickens next year.

Panto-a-no-no, mes amis. Come join me in the nest instead.