Friday, December 3, 2010

A quick tour

Welcome to the nursery

I'm writing today from the Fortress of Solitude, otherwise known as Southern Maryland, where I am all alone. Except for Robb and Sukey and little baby-kicks-a-lot and our neighbors who had us over for Wii bowling and pizza last night and my coworkers and friends. Aside from that crowd, though, I'm completely alone. Truly most of our family and loved ones are somewhere else, and we consider ourselves lucky to get them down to our wilderness outpost once a year.

In addition I've hit this weird pregnancy travel barrier. Every time I'm cooped up in a car for over an hour, I get very twitchy and start making a low keening noise that grows and grows like a husky dog waking up from anesthesia, until ultimately I am howling and my left ankle has blown up to four times its normal size and the baby doggedly attempts to climb into my chest cavity. When I finally get out of the car, I feel achy and cranky.  (I almost typed "achy and breaky.") And let me tell you: I am a real joy to be around at that point. Just ask Robb.

Since I'm not traveling anywhere again until Christmas, and you're unlikely to visit our house until after the baby is on the outside of my body, and the baby's room will never been this clean and organized once that happens, it seems like a good time for a virtual tour. Welcome to the nursery. (Click on the panorama below for a closer look around.)

Baby room panorama

Actually I rarely use the word "nursery" in reference to the baby's room. I spent ten adolescent summers working at plant nurseries, and I can't quite bring myself to think of the baby's room as a place for wet sneakers and sweat and the fetid reek of decomposition. Perhaps a few dirty diapers will help me see how they are analogous.

Crib

For our impending offspring we chose the smallest of the bedrooms, which was previously the room in which I painted and sewed and got my craft on. All of that stuff has been relocated to the underused second living room, where it now looks at me with stern disapproval every time I walk by and pretend not to notice the mess. Robb has less luck pretending not to notice the mess. He even went so far as to trip over a painting and cut his shin open on the corner of the frame just to illustrate how patient and long-suffering he truly is. Photos of the new craft room in disarray will be included as attachments to his application for sainthood.

Mobile

For the moment we have the Congratulations banner from my baby shower slung across the windows. We intend to replace it with honest to goodness curtains. In fact I ordered a cute set of green ones, but apparently 42" times two panels does not equal 100". I didn't happen to notice this until I was standing on a chair holding up a curtain panel thinking, "This looks a skosh narrow." Foiled by math once again!

Billy bass

No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is Billy Bass in the corner right next to baby's first fishing pole. We want to introduce the child to taxidermied animals as early as possible since their petrified bodies are hanging dustily all over our house. Unfortunately this is the only one that sings "Don't Worry Be Happy."

Changing table

I have been playing dress up, making little unisex outfits to go with baby's growing collection of sweaters and knitted vests. I picked up Easy Baby Knits by Claire Montgomerie on Wednesday and am psyched about getting into it. Although word around Ravelry has it that the patterns run a little large and that it pays to check out the authors blog for errata. Makes me so appreciative of knit designers like Cosy who use real live test knitters for all their patterns and then proofread them like the dickens. Sounds like just plain common sense, right? But you'd be surprised how many knitting patterns hit the street with nary a test, written by people with poorer math skills than me.

Tiny laundry

All of the dresser drawers are filled to the gills with receiving blankets and diapers and 0-3 months clothing.

Organized closet

So I hung all of the larger sizes in the closet. Robb just shook his head, exclaiming that his unborn child has a larger wardrobe than him. In all the angst he somehow missed the fact that I have arranged the child's clothing by size and then by color. If I have already rainbowed our bookshelves and my own closet, why should the kid have it any other way?

5 comments:

Tmomma said...

Doesn't everyone arrange by size then color of course divided by season!

Is that Billy The Bass from one of the Christmas' I spent with you guys? Great memories :)

The nursery looks great! Have you found little baby Teva's yet?

old dog said...

Way too much time on your hands. Why don't you come for a visit and organize for me? Oh, it's over an hour to get hear:(

old dog said...

Ha Ha.. get here. Oh and I really liked the tour of the Baby Kingdom.

Anonymous said...

love love love it! Poor Maddie, her room still isn't done all the way! Her crib didn't even get set up until a few weeks before her arrival... I guess by #3 comes along, your more "laid back" about it all... or I am just a huge slacker! haha

Barb Mowery said...

Billy Bass was a "gift" to Robb from our neighbor Carl. He must have been cleaning out closets or something. Robb brought it home delighted, "Look what Carl gave me!" I frowned, "Remind me to thank him."

I am still on the lookout for baby Tevas to go with baby's tie dye onesies and khaki shorts.