Lists

For the last while, our life has revolved around lists. We have lists of things that need to be done before the baby comes, and sub lists within those lists for specifics. There are many items to acquire, plans to be made surrounding labor and birth, things to get done around the house, and things to make sure we have ready to make our lives easier once the baby comes. This weekend has been nonstop doing things on the lists, which feels good in a sense because we are accomplishing things, but exhausting because we don't have much time to relax at the moment. However, when we look now at our lists it seems that most things are done. There are still things that we have to prepare that will take some time (like acquiring items for and putting together a birth bag, which we are coming to realize is probably several bags, some of which may or may not be needed depending on the length of the hospital stay and such), but really the majority is finished. So I'm thinking that soon we will go back to having some relaxing weekends, relaxing evenings, and time to prepare mentally for the baby.

One thing that we did this weekend that we had not planned on doing was create a baby registry. We more or less intended to get all of the things that we needed on our own, get some secondhand things from family and friends, and be done with it. I know that people like to give gifts, but we are pretty self-sufficient and financially stable, and creating a registry really seems like asking people to buy you things, and this feels uncomfortable to me at this point. However, we were informed that our department will be holding a baby shower for us, and people in our department are more likely to contribute cash than to actually go out and buy a gift. So what will end up happening in this case is that our department secretaries will be given some cash to work with, and it will be up to them to actually purchase gifts for this shower. Without a registry, this makes their job extremely difficult, and we absolutely did not want to make things difficult for anyone. 

So over the weekend we took a trip to Toys "R" Us/Babies "R" Us, and created a registry. This shower will not be held until September 8 due to people being on vacation and dates for start of term, and that is only twelve days before our due date. So we didn't feel that we could put anything on the registry that was a "must have" before the baby was born, so we have more or less purchased all the essentials ourselves. I thought that we would be able to create a registry with just a few things on it, enough to make the lives of our department secretaries easy when they are planning our shower and buying gifts. However, when we showed up to make the registry we were told that we had to put at least fifty items on it. In some ways it was fun, but in many ways it just felt like work, trying to figure out how many onesies and in what sizes, how many teething toys, etc., we could reasonably add. But it's done, and it is a relief. 

While we were there, we also purchased a few things in order to have the basics of what we need for the very beginning. That part was fun for me – especially buying some newborn size clothes for the baby to wear home from the hospital. Because I know some people are wondering, the sex of the baby is going to be a surprise – it seems like the thing that everyone asks about and everyone cares about, but that is so much less important to us than other things, like the fact that we are having a human baby :-) So, we got some very cute gender-neutral onesies and sleepers, and thinking about the fact that in just two short months our little baby will be wearing them makes me all mushy and melty.

As promised, below are some pictures of our nursery progress. We have a dresser that we already had, a comfy glider rocker, a change table, and a bassinet in the baby room. After I took a few pictures I realized that the creepy baby doll was in some of them, so I took one last photo with the doctor removed :-)

In our bedroom, we have a crib with one side removed pushed between the wall and our bed. We will be securing the crib to our bed frame with bungee cords (which I purchased today – one more thing checked off the list). Currently, the crib is filled with plastic bags to keep cats out.

And lastly, speaking of cats, although ours have been very well behaved (no pooping outside the litter box, no attempts to escape from basement cat jail at night), we are continuing to have problems with Maddy's neighborhood friend. This is the cat that had peed on our front door several times. Well, he has stopped peeing on the front door since we put out the stayaway, but he has since started peeing on the back door. This is actually less of a problem because of how things are structured there, and it is easier to clean up. But recently we had an experience that was a bit jarring. I smelled cat pee, and couldn't find the source – it was not outside the front door, and it was not outside the back door, but I definitely smelled it in the house. Occasionally we leave the door open to allow some air in and to allow Koshka, who is a big scaredy, to explore outside knowing that she can run back in whenever she chooses. So apparently on one of these occasions when the door was left open (for probably ten minutes, so not very long) the neighborhood cat came inside and peed on a storage cube that we had in the shelf, and on our wall.

I could not believe it, but it was definitely mail cat spray, so there is no other reasonable explanation than that he came in and actually peed in our house. We threw away the storage cube and we were able to clean the wall, but now we can never leave the door open unattended. If it was our own cat, I would be frustrated but would feel better about it somehow, because we get absolutely nothing from this cat other than pee. I wish I knew where this cat lived and could talk to his owners, though that would probably do nothing to solve the problem. Anyway, at least we are reasonably able to clean up the smell!