Friday, September 20, 2013

Have your second kid first: Decorating the nursery

Months before we brought M home, I had meticulously planned the nursery décor. It was a fun and funky jungle theme. Not too girly, because I'm nothing if not practical. I wanted to be able to reuse that stuff if we had a second child. The wall mirrors matched the lamp, which matched the window treatment, which matched the comforter, which matched the dust ruffle (yes really, a fucking dust ruffle), which matched the totally useless crib bumpers. Warm, cozy and inviting, it was the perfect spot for a little baby to sleep, and it was ready months in advance.

And then I found myself breastfeeding a nine pound baby approximately 36 times a night. The totally useless crib bumpers collected dust as she slept in the bassinet beside our bed to spare me the trip down the hall for those endless feedings. When we found out Z was on the way, we bought M a big girl bed set and moved her to what was the guest room because it was larger and had a play room attached. Big girls get play rooms, babies get tiny nurseries. It softened the blow.

The nursery was turned into the guest room because THIS time I knew that baby would spend the first few months in the bassinet in our room. We got around to turning it back into a baby's room this past weekend. Would you like to see the warm, cozy and inviting space my baby currently sleeps in?


Note the picture hanger with nothing on it. The hand crafted wall hanging I made for M moved to her room in the big switch. As it turns out, babies really don't give a shit about matchy-matchy dust ruffles and window treatments. Who knew?