A Right Of Passage

After being asked when the due date is, if it's a boy or girl, are we excited... the next question usually is, do you have the nursery ready. Nope, we do not! For lots of reasons. For starters, the crib is probably going to start in our room. Josh and I are dead set on not co sleeping - meaning no baby in our bed! However, Josh's experiences tell me those first few weeks/months he'll be up a lot at night and it will just be easier to have him close. The 2nd big reason is that what will be his room is currently the playroom for the girls. So we've wanted to tread lightly and slowly on this big change for them. The last few months we've quietly been cleaning out toys they never play with, and slowly migrating things into their room. One big storage unit will have to stay, but by the time lil' Jack starts having toys, I think they will start phasing out of all the little toys and the timing will be just fine. Anywho, so while ya, it would be fun to have it all set up, I wasn't really in a big rush to do so. Until now. :) And just think - my nesting instincts haven't even taken over yet! It just dawned on me the other day my shower is in like 2 weeks. I don't want to end up with all of this stuff and no where to put it, and then it's just in piles around the house. So I told Josh my goal is to have the dresser and crib set up and waiting by then.

Back track to the first trimester when we announced to the families that we were expecting. Josh's aunt and uncle graciously offered up a crib and huge dresser/table combo set they had for their son, who had recently switched to a toddler bed. We were thrilled! So Steve, Josh's dad, offered to go get the crib for us this week, and brought it over last night. After dinner Josh and I (read, me sitting in the middle of the room watching Josh) began to assemble the crib. As I sat there dutifully watching and not actually helping, I wondered how many future moms and dads had spent a night after work doing exactly this. Then I pictured my mom and dad, very likely in this same room, setting up a crib for Lizzie... and it just struck me as such a neat right of passage. Call it hormones but it actually got me a little teary eyed. This was like joining some new secret club, not just anyone gets to do this.. and suddenly, sitting there in the middle of the still half playroom/half nursery, realizing Josh was building the crib around me and I was soon going to be stuck (it was hysterical trying to get out later), and watching Josh's face as he concentrated to figure it out, I felt so blessed, and so lucky. I think it's all finally starting to feel real.

The only bummer was the crib actually didn't work out - several pieces were broken so we'll need to scrap it and get a new game plan, but I'm not too worried about it!