Making Progress

This week was very productive on the "Get Ready for Henry" front. I got a few more things ordered that we need before his arrival (like cloth diapers because, yes, we're crazy and we're going to cloth diaper this kiddo, thankyouverymuch). I started our doula search (because, yes, I'm crazy and I'm going to try for a drug-free birth, thankyouverymuch). Our friends Dauphin and Kelly dropped off some of the things they no longer needed for their own bambino (like a swing and a bassinet and some bottles), which struck things off of my "to buy" list (so grateful!). But the biggest strides came this weekend when Richard and my mom came up to Austin to help us tackle the room that for the last ten years has been our office but will soon need to be the nursery/guest room.

When they arrived on Saturday morning, the room looked like this:

Not exactly newborn baby friendly. Although I guess he could just sleep in the car seat perched on top of the office chair. All of the books scattered on the floor and on top of the bed were destined for Half Price Books but that still left a couple of hundred more books in that room that needed to find new homes in our house. And, actually, by the time they arrived Brian had already boxed up all the books that were going away and loaded them into our car (he took them in on Sunday morning and we, surprisingly, got $250 for them. More than I expected). So, we could at least see the top of the bed.

Brian got to work switching around some bookshelves in our living room and finding places for the books that were to stay while my mom, Richard, and I trekked up to IKEA to pick up a bed and mattress for Oliver and a dresser for the nursery. Oliver has been sleeping in what was his crib (I converted it into a toddler bed last March) but we needed to boot him out of there so Henry could have the crib. Luckily, Oliver was really excited about the prospect of his "big boy bed" so ditching the crib wasn't traumatic in the least. I'm not sure my doctor would be too thrilled with the fact that I walked around IKEA for a few hours but it felt really good to get out of the house and be able to help with the baby preparations in some way other than gestating.

When we got home, Richard, Brian, and Liz got to work assembling Oliver's bed (a process that took about three times longer than I thought it would so the poor kid couldn't get to bed until ten. Oops!) and I camped out on the couch with Oliver, watching Dinosaur Train and recovering from the most physical activity I had had in almost eight weeks. 

On Sunday, my mom and I tackled the closet in what will be Henry's room, which took forever. It's a tiny closet but I had managed to cram a whole bunch of crap into it. I stopped to take a nap with Oliver (the best thing about his big boy bed, is there's room for me, too!) but spent pretty much the entire day deciding what to toss, what to keep (and where to put it if we were going to keep it) and what to sell from that closet. But by the end of the day, we had been successful in cleaning out the room and it now looks like this:

You'll have to forgive the colors in the photos above. I took them with my iPad. I promise the room isn't green-tinged. Anyway. The room is finally ready for paint. Well, that's not technically true. The room is finally ready for some minor repairs to be done to the walls and door and then it is ready for paint. But it's miles ahead of where it was on Friday. We're so thankful for Mom and Richard's (and Liz's) help this weekend!