More Baby Room

Yesterday Scott and I went to Des Moines, and bought a bunch more stuff to prepare for the baby.  At this point we feel that we have enough clothes and diapers to get through the first couple weeks.  We don't want to buy too many clothes at this time, because we don't know the gender of the baby yet!

We didn't have anything on the schedule for today, so we slept in until about 9am (that won't happen for much longer!), then took it easy for the morning.  I called my mom and asked if she wanted to come over and bring some slave labor...she came over with my nieces Emily and Abby.  I tried to give the nieces "fun" jobs, so they got to do things like take all the toys and clothes out of the packages and off the hangers and organize them into bins.  I also let them paint the primer on a shelf...in the middle of the living room.  They only needed a few reminders not to wave the paintbrush around.  :)

I have a set of pictures to go up on the wall, so I asked Emily and Abby to come up with a good way to display them.  They had fun trying different shapes and designs.

Mom and Scott put together a cube storage unit.

The winning design!

 I started hanging up the pictures before Mom left with the girls so they could help.  It was a very frustrating process.  We experimented with different ways to hang them, and decided that they would work really well with picture hangers.  Unfortunately, with the sheet rock walls, sometimes the nails on the picture hangers go all the way in, and sometimes they don't (and you find yourself bouncing the hammer off the head of the nail and listening to things falling inside the walls).  Every time I went to hang another picture, I would have to put them all up to make sure they were in the right spot, then take them all down since they would fall off the wall as soon as I started hammering.  A couple fell off randomly and cracked the edges of the frames.  Even now, if you slam a door, there is a chance one might just pop off the wall.

At one point, Mom peeked her head in.

Mom: How's it going?

Abby: Aunt Colleen is swearing at the pictures!

Colleen:  I didn't swear, but I did call them stupid!!!

Here are the pictures, on the wall.  Careful not to breathe heavy, one might fall down.

We also framed the picture from Melanie (slightly easier to hang up than the other ones), got the changing area ready to go with diapers and wipes and everything, and put out the garbage can!

Cube storage (with toys neatly put away in the bins, as I'm sure they will always be...) and the laundry hamper.

Since there isn't a closet in this room, we are planning to put up a shelf along the wall above the cubes.  The L-brackets have a hanger for a dowel, so that will serve to hang up clothes for the time being.  We figure that by the time the kid is old enough to know that doesn't really count as a "closet," we will have moved to a bigger house.  We're just finishing the first coat of paint on the shelf, so that project will probably get done next weekend.

On the list to do soon:  put car seat hook-ups in the cars, and pack the diaper bag and our hospital bag.  I'm now just past 35 weeks.  Yesterday the doctor said that if I went into labor in the next week, he would still consider it premature and send me to Des Moines.  But after 36 weeks, he would feel ok with me going into labor, and would happily deliver the baby in Pella.  So at this point I really need to start bringing the hospital bag with me whenever I go to work or go on trips.

March is a very busy work month for my job.  We have Regionals (a 2-day volleyball tournament) the last two weekends in March, and have High Performance tryouts pretty much every weekend in March.  I usually end up working 50 hour weeks plus weekends in March...not so much this year.  I am doing as much as I can, and still planning on going to the HP tryouts to do check-in, but will not be able to carry all the boxes of shirts or do as much set-up, just be able to sit at the desk.  Same thing for Regionals--I'll be sitting at a desk entering scores online, and that's about it.  I also have to make sure I have a way to get home if something should happen.  My brother is coming to Mount Vernon with me next week to an HP tryout--I will put him to work handing out shirts, treat him to supper, and he is my back-up driver.  My sister is working at Regionals, so we arranged the assignments so that if I need to leave, she can leave with me.  I really didn't plan to be giving birth during our busiest time of the year!  The hard part is that you can't predict exactly when it will happen--will I be able to do HP tryouts on March 16?  Maybe.  Will I be working the desk at Regionals on March 24-25?  Maybe.  I am glad that this pregnancy has been healthy and that I am still mobile and able to do things.  But it sure would be easier to schedule work if I was on bedrest and could just say, "Sorry, I can't do anything!"  Although, I'd rather be healthy.  :)