Week 26: Nesting

They tell you in all the baby books and websites that expectant mothers reach a point in the pregnancy where their hormones trigger their “nesting” urge. I'm not sure if it’s the estrogen or the progesterone that’s supposed to make this happen but I think I may be lacking whatever the hormone because I don’t feel at all “nesty” at least not up to this point. Once I did a good spring/summer cleaning of the condo last month, I have really appreciated having a nice, neat house so that's something. But I did that kind of cleaning last spring before the wedding and felt the same sense of order, sanity and satisfaction. In other words, there’s nothing about it that says, “Getting this space ready for baby,” to me. I think I may just be missing that gene.

Having said that, Johann is more than making up for my lack of nesty-ness. I spent the night with my girlfriends over the weekend and they cooed when they heard how hard he was working on the nursery, “Oh, Johann’s nesting!” It is pretty sweet but J, in all his adorable-ness, is really just a practical guy. He’s the kind of person who likes to have a to-do list full of tasks to accomplish to complete his project du jour. Putting together a nursery – with all its blank-slate possibilities – is right up his alley. He gets to really sink his teeth in, be creative, go all out with color and design and create a space where his precious little offspring will be safe and happy. These are the things that I know bring him a great deal of inner contentment.

I also think that he likes having “something” to do during the pregnancy process. J is the kind of person who believes in letter-of-the-law fairness which is a rare and endearing quality. I think he sees me making a conscious effort every day to care for baby in-utero and he sees the “heavy lifting” that is nine months of pregnancy and I can tell he feels he needs to be doing his part. I, of course, think that the fact that he works hard and puts a roof over our head is more than enough in the “pulling his own weight” department but for him, fairness is essential. If I’m working hard to make a little person then he’s going to be working hard to make a great space for that little person.

Thus, the baby room, which at one time was a loft, then was a construction zone when the walls were put up, is usually a part-office and, until recently, was still looking pretty bare-bones, is finally starting to come together. J’s been working in there tirelessly for a couple of weeks now and I’m impressed with his progress. He’s repurposed two pieces of furniture – a chest of drawers that’s been painted white and will have the nursery colors inserted in the panels on each drawer so it will be fun and colorful – and a shelving unit I’ve had for years that has also been painted white and is now going to be a fabulous changing table and storage place for all things diaper-related. I don’t think we even set out to be so economical in our decorating scheme - I think we both accepted that baby furniture is a necessary investment – but I’ve been impressed with J’s ingenuity and ability to take stuff that we were just going to throw out and make it into the perfect baby furniture. He’s just super creative like that.

The room also has lighting now, a great throw rug and a shelving unit where baby’s first stuffed animals now live. J’s experimenting with his wall décor, too, which has gone through a few incarnations and is still working its way up to his exacting standards. Overall, our scheme of white furniture with orange, navy blue and gray accents is working really well and with the use of tigers as a theme (baby is being born during the Chinese year of the tiger like me!), I think we’ve got the coolest, most unique nursery on the block. I can’t wait until it all comes together and we can post photos!

We’re still working on finding the right glider rocker, though, and that and finding the crib that makes me happy has so far been a challenge. Yes, in the midst of J’s great nursery project the boulder blocking the road to completion has been yours truly. (Now do you believe me that I don’t have the nesting instinct?) Since the big CPS nationwide recall of over two million drop-side cribs, we parents-to-be are stuck with having to hoist our babies into cribs with stationary rails which is bad news for my bad back. Every crib I’ve found that’s been lower in the front to allow for more clearance has either been exorbitantly expensive (at least more than I feel should be paid for a piece of baby furniture) the wrong color, a fortune in shipping costs or out of stock. At this rate, baby’s going to be sleeping in a cardboard box! Luckily for the nursery project, I only have the patience to go a couple of more days before I give in and we just buy a crib that will look nice, will be unfortunately impractical, but will nevertheless suffice. And to think that I call J the perfectionist…

Speaking of perfection, great progress was made over the weekend on finding all of our accoutrements for our baby registry. I wondered if we’d ever get the logistics figured out, even despite the expert advice I received, but we spent all of Sunday seeking out some great items that will work for us. Especially awesome finds were a swing/bouncy chair combo and a travel system that incorporates an infant travel seat with a jogging stroller that can hold up to 55 lbs. Yeah, I know these sound like relatively minor things in the big scheme of things but it’s shocking how being undecided on this stuff can hold up a whole process (i.e.; getting registered) that can, in turn, take up time and hold up other processes. I hate feeling undecided and like I’m going in circles. So, this week, we’ll get the registry going and by next week we should be all set. Between that and getting the details of the nursery nailed down, we should be ready to move on from the major work of both by the end of the month. And that's a good thing because by then I’ll be done reading my first round of parenting books and we’ll start our childbirth, breastfeeding and newborn classes August 2nd. Whew!

And no, I don’t know where we find the time to do all this stuff but there’s this part of me that's super happy to be busy with all of it nonetheless. :)

J.