We've been collecting baby gear in the bedroom next to ours for what feels like forever. We had just started to collect a few things when we lost Faith, and our first reaction was to close the door and try to forget what was inside. Over the weeks between pregnancies, that bedroom became a catchall storage area. When spring break arrived in March, we spend some time cleaning it out, sorting all the things we'd stored, getting rid of some things, finding permanent homes for others. It has stayed more or less neat and tidy since then, but over the last couple of weeks we've begun accumulating things in there again. This time, however, it's been baby things, things that belong in a nursery.
The room is beginning to come together. We have an antique dresser that will double as our changing table. We put up the crib before M went back to school. We added the mattress a couple of weeks ago. My father-in-law recovered the seat of a beautiful wooden rocking chair and delivered it recently. He also added an additional shelf and rod to one of the room's closets so that Baby Graber will eventually be able to choose his own clothes and dress himself without M or I having to reach things for him. My mother-in-law has finished the crib quilt she started exactly one year ago and she even made a valance to match. The nursery officially has a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme (from author Eric Carle).
(C - I hope you don't mind. I needed to show this off!)
That's my mother-in-law hiding behind the quilt in her beautiful, sunny sewing room! The quilt turned out absolutely amazing and the valance to match was added to the nursery last night.
More pictures of the nursery will be coming as we continue to add to the room. It's amazing to me how much we've already amassed for this little person and how much more it feels like we need. I have a basket of clothes that are washed and ready to go. I have cloth diapers washed and ready to go even though we don't plan to use them right away. There are so many things ready and waiting.
We're down to about six weeks (or less if he's early!), and I have to admit there's this not-quite-awake feeling that creeps up on me at times. I am so ready to meet this little person, but every time I leave the house to run to the grocery store or pick up the mail, I'm reminded how much more complicated those simple activities will be in just a few weeks. I guess most new parents experience this feeling as they near the birth of their baby, a feeling of anticipation and wonder at what life will be like once the baby that has spent so many long months growing safely inside is suddenly a part of your life in a very different way.
I've spent so many of the last months pregnant that even when I dream I always dream that I'm pregnant. I'm starting to wonder if I'll stay pregnant in my dreams long after Baby Graber arrives! I'm very ready for the changes that will soon come to our lives with this new arrival, but I think that until he's here and we're living the day-to-day reality of life with Baby, I'm always going to feel a little bit of the not-quite-awake sensation I experienced this morning, a sense of wonder and anticipation along with a sense of surprise that this is my baby, my son, whose birth this house is anxiously awaiting.
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