Nursery progress

I finally found both a camera and a USB cord, so I figured it was time to give a little update on the nursery and assure my parents that we are actually planning to have a finished room for Peanut by the time she gets here.

Yesterday another generous friend chauffeured us to pick up a horrendously heavy piece of baby furniture, so the crib and combo unit are now in place. Our perilously narrow stairway led to a bit of drama as the fully assembled, solid mahogany dresser needed to be hoisted over uneven landscaping, heaved around turns, and lifted over delicate banisters, but they did a remarkable job.



Isn't the crib lovely? Sucker came in a box as big as my living room, and so heavy that it had to be taken up the stairs piece by piece, but assembly was remarkably simple and only took the boy and me around 30 minutes total. Perhaps that's what the premium was for.



This lovely piece came fully assembled, right down to the drawer pulls. Combo units are hard to find, but since they make all bedrooms around ten feet by ten feet now I just couldn't find a way to shove a crib, dresser, changing table and glider all in her room, so we went with this bad boy.

Is her furniture nicer and more expensive than many pieces of other furniture in our house? Yep. Am I embarrassed by this fact? Admittedly, a little. But, I still have our $1,500 Egyptian cotton sheets* to luxuriate on while she has to snooze on crappy cotton ones, so if she gets snotty about it at least I have something.

Because I'm insane - as I point out often so you won't get any ideas of listening to me - I have spent an unmentionable amount of my life researching baby gear, and a car seat was one of the scariest. We FINALLY decided on one and I ordered it that second so I wouldn't have the option of talking myself out of it. Of course, the safest seats had no girlie patterns, so she gets yellow. Oh well.



Somehow we've managed to accumulate quite the pile of baby junk in the past few months without really accomplishing anything from our list. Do we have thirteen thousand frilly dresses in her closet that she will probably never wear? Close. Do we have a stroller? Nope. I assure you that our priorities aren't that far out of line, but outfits with little watermelon shaped flip flops are a lot easier to pick out than the bassinet where she will spend the vast majority of her first few months on Earth.

At least the painters are finished, and the major parts of her nursery are in so I can continue my market research and narrow down the final forty or so necessities to brand and model number.

Then I have to wrestle my inner demons and write a ridiculous check to the cord blood banking company who swears it isn't preying on my maternal instincts to protect my not-yet-born in any way conceivably possible. I may have sucker stamped on my forehead, but if our Peanut happens to be the one in 4,000 children who gets a disease that has already been identified as treatable with these little miracle cells, well, she damn well is going to have access to them.

On a lighter note, and lest you think I have forgotten my first-born, here is what happens approximately ten seconds after I vacuum the downstairs:



The Beagador likes to channel his inner piglet and roll around in the area where the grass is baked to straw by the Phoenix sun. When he feels that he has an appropriate amount of filth glued to his coat he runs in to show me, proud as a peacock. It usually makes his daddy laugh, but I got the last chuckle a few days ago when the boy had just spent an hour bathing his baby Sprocket and he ran outside to wallow while still damp.

I think the Sprocket and the Peanut will be best of (messy) friends!

*Please note that these sheets were purchased long before I met the boy and had any idea what a budget was, and why you shouldn't buy sheets from Neiman Marcus. And yes, if it brings you any satisfaction, the seams on these suckers tore long before any of our Dillard's sheets have.