Month: June 2008

Any time from today on is considered full-term for this baby, so we’ve been trying to get the big things done enough to feel ready. Big things like: digging the infant carseat out of the basement…check, doing some baby laundry…maybe tomorrow, packing the bag for the hospital…uh, yeah, better do that soon… And, of course, trying to get the baby’s room to a point where it’s not completely under construction anymore. Denis got the painting done this weekend, and he and my youngest brother got the furniture mostly sorted out. Carrie has a “new” (my old) dresser in her room (with a mirror!), and the changing table/dresser is all set to be filled in the baby’s room. Once we get the closet organizer in, the window treatments up, and assemble the crib, the room will be as done as it needs to be for now. I’m not assembling the crib until everything else is done, though, because I went into labor with Carrie the night we put her crib up, so I’m feeling a little superstitious about that…of course, by the end of this predicted hot and humid week, I might just be begging to get that crib ready…

Oh, and happy birthday, Lisa – sorry I couldn’t go strawberry picking with you today!

With the gradual rise of my blood pressure, I’ve been getting to do weekly blood work (fun!), non-stress tests (actually, those are pretty relaxing), and yesterday I even got to have another ultrasound, just to make sure everything was still looking good. Of course, I wanted to be sure baby was fine, but I also asked the tech if she’d be willing to just double-check for me that there is still a baby sister in there. Although it would be a pain to have to repaint the pink wall in the baby’s room, my bigger concern was that Carrie has been talking about her new baby sister for four months now, and I’d been getting more and more worried that we’d wind up with a surprise in the delivery room and come home with a baby brother instead. (How exactly would I be able to explain that?!?)

But, she is definitely still a girl. No doubt in the tech’s mind, so that’s one less thing for me to worry about. Oh, and she looks perfect in all other ways as well, so now we just get to play the waiting game while she decides what her birthday will be! And possibly try a little harder to pick a name…

Ladies and gentlemen, we now have a pink and yellow room. (Let’s just hope the ultrasound technician was right about this baby being a girl!) There’s still quite a bit of trim painting to do, a closet organizer and shades to install, and a lot of furniture moving that has to happen, but I’m actually starting to believe that the room might possibly be usable before the baby arrives! (Four or so weeks to go…)

Bonus points if Carrie’s “big girl” room is completely set up too. I found the neatest idea for rain gutter bookshelves which will solve a lot of problems for us – most of which involve the insane number of books the kid has already, all of which are too tall to stand up on her tiny bookcase. Plus, it’s cheaper than even the cheapest flimsy particle board bookcase you can buy right now. So even when we need to replace it in a few years – I can’t imagine that she’ll still be reading the sort of books we’d put in these shelves by the end of elementary school – it won’t have been such a huge investment that we’ll regret it.