Nesting in a hurry

In which I reveal whether Baby C will be a Little Mister or a Little Miss

The last few weeks have been C.R.A.Z.Y. 

It all began when my lovely mint-green purse was stolen... phone, social security card, drivers' license, insurance cards, debit card, my favorite lipstick and rosary... you name it, it was gone. So instead of spending the next weekend in prepare-for-home-study mode I was in replace-everything-and-sit-in-the-longest-lines-on-the-face-of-the-planet mode. Then I caught a dreadful cold and lost my voice. And got a summons for jury duty.

Alas. These things happen. 

Then last week I received an email from the social worker who is handling our homestudy that she would like to do the visit on Sunday. Like in four days? Bring it on. Due to impending parent-teacher conferences and the multitude of student meetings and tutoring and redoing all of our financial and ID information I was, let us say, a bit behind on all of the childproofing and paperworking and reorganizing the guestroom to become nursery. 

Last week looked a lot like this.

Unfortunately, it also looked a lot like this...

Maggie the Destroyer really appreciates good packing material

My wonderful MIL asked to buy our crib for our little one, so with very little argument and multiple expressions of gratitude we agreed and chose a very nice white crib with a drawer (who doesn't love a little extra storage in a small space?).

So... we cleared out the guestroom, broke down the old IKEA twin bed I have had since college, put the crib together and shut the door so we could get all of the other things we needed to get done, done.

I also got online to find a list of the sorts of things that needed to be done in order to have a successful home study. If you are in the position to have a homestudy, I would highly recommend NOT looking at those lists. Unless you have a lot of time and patience and you are not liable to panic about the sheer number of childproofing things that don't really need to be done until 1) you have a child placed with you and 2) that child is mobile.

I digress. 

Then comes Saturday. Tim was out of town for a previous commitment and I was in stress city. With each step forward it seemed there were two steps back. Sure, we got the old bed in the attic, but then the attic door broke... That sort of thing. When it became clear to me that it was time to get out of the house, I took my list and headed toward Target. On my way I saw a child's resale shop and I opted to step in. This was one of the best decisions of recent memory.

Just when I thought that I was too exhausted reorganizing and rushing to get everything in its right place and cleaning and reorganizing some more to do any more, I was re-energized by shopping for the little one who will be given to our care in the very near future. And at a $1 a piece, retail therapy doesn't get much cheaper.

Boy or Girl? I give you two guesses... and the first one doesn't count.

So I got home, finished dinner, kept on a cleaning and reorganizing and childproofing 

until this happened.

It looks like a real nursery, for a real live baby, who will soon be home with us sleeping in that real crib (once it has a real mattress).

And the next day, when we opened our home to a social worker and showed her the house and the nursery (and did not once look in our closets or check our childproofing!) she told us that it all looked good. 

One step forward. We still have a ton to do, but we can do this.

And yes, Baby C is a little lady.