Let the Nesting Begin

This weekend we had our second of three showers. It was terrific. I got to see my family and I also got to see all of my mom's friends. They are such a crucial link to mom. All the way home from Bloomington I thanked God that my mom was such a good friend and cultivated relationships with such excellent people. Each one of them reminds me of my mom in some way or another.

The good news is we got some lovely stuff for the baby. The bad news is the nursery was not prepared for the influx of stuff. What that meant is that on Sunday I channeled my mom and "got busy." I worked around the house from 12:00 when we got home from church/Target until 8:45 when Jeff banned me from starting any new projects. We finally finished the "easy-to-assemble" dresser and got that moved in to place. Then I started sorting through the clothes and separating them by size. The bigger ones went in to a tub to be used later and the smaller ones went in to the washing machine. I washed all of the bedding and all of the towels/clothes we received. Jeff was funny as I was pouring the clothes in to the washer he smiled and said look at all of that little stuff. I decided that baby socks, while being ridiculously cute, are even worse to launder than regular socks, which I loathe. Socks suck! At about 8:00 I began assembling the bouncy chair which was when Jeff yelled at me for starting a new project at this time of night. But once I was done I just sat in the rocker and took in the glory of the clean nursery, sloppy paint job and imperfectly assembled dresser and all. It all looks pretty darn good and I am proud to put my bean in there once she comes.

I still feel slightly overwhelmed with all of the stuff I need to know so I have started thinking about the "rules" at night before I go to bed. No immersion bathing until the umbilical stump falls off, alcohol swab the stump every time you change the diaper, no pacifiers for two weeks or until breastfeeding is well established, no bottle until four weeks, bath every three days, the 5 S's of a happy baby, feed every two hours, don't let them sleep more than three hours at a time during the day, wake them up to feed at night if they have slept four hours, count stools and wet diapers to know if your baby is getting enough to eat, etc. I am sure once the baby comes and I am sleeping for about four hours a night I will forget the rules completely and some sort of survival instinct will kick in but for now I am busy chanting. The chanting makes me feel better though and that makes me feel like I might be able to do this after all.