41 weeks: Snow Day

We are having a big February snow storm this weekend.  It's been snowing for a little less than 24 hours now, and we have 13.7 inches of snow so far. (Officially; it looks like more in our yard.)

This is Devyn posing next to the gigantic pile of snow left after Daddy cleared the driveway.

Yesterday, before the snow started, Devyn had her first playdate.  Her little friend came over with his mom, and we had a really nice time.

Devyn has started trying to stand up more often.  This isn't a great photo, but she uses her walker to stand up, sort of...

And THIS is our brilliantly ghetto baby gate.  Notice the panel of wood, held to the gate and the banister with zip ties.  And notice the old socks between the zip ties and the banister, so that the wood doesn't get ruined.

It's not pretty, but it works.

32 Weeks: Nursery Progress

We spent part of our day Saturday putting some of the decorative finishing touches on the nursery. Above you can see the vinyl wall decal we got (click the photo to see it larger) that is the basis for the "theme" of the room. I didn't want to go all-out circus theme, but I just loved this so much.

(You can also see the doomed dresser—now much repaired—the crib bumper I got on consignment, and the ottoman of the consignment glider, complete with ugly denim cushion that needs to be recovered.)

It took some time, but it really wasn't hard to put up. Just have to be patient with all those little fiddly bits.

We also painted the other closet door with the chalkboard paint. Just need to do a few touch ups—and buy some chalk!—and then I will post photos of those.

Consignment Sale Tales

Today, at the kids' consignment sale, we acquired a glider.

This is actually our second glider, but I've just realized I never wrote about the first.

You see, we're pretty freaking picky when it comes to furniture, and most of the gliders out there are just unbelievably ugly. I mean, I get that it's nursery furniture, but that doesn't mean it has to be hideous, does it? And the ones that actually are cute cost about ten times as much—literally.

So finally, we found one we didn't hate. (I tried to find a picture of it and didn't do very well.) It was at Babies R Us and had a tag on that said we could get it in 7–10 days.

But when we went to order it, we discovered that the 7–10 days only applied to the color they had on the floor—which was not the color we wanted. To get the color we wanted, it would be 10–12 weeks.

OK, cutting it close, but still doable.

And then they told us it would be back ordered. And we would get it in 16–20 weeks. Baby could be three months old by the time we get it.

Awesome. But what are we going to do? We ordered the chair.

My mother-in-law suggested that if we found one cheap at a garage sale or a thrift store, we should buy it. So when we saw one at this consignment sale for $40—with an ottoman—we got it. Who cares that the wood is the wrong color or that the cushions were GOD AWFUL ugly and dirty. I have already put them out with the garbage. And we'll have somewhere to rock Bean before she turns two.

The Dresser Scenario

We have been searching for a dresser/changing table combo for months now, and yesterday, we finally bought one.

Originally, we planned to buy the dresser that matched our crib. But it had to be ordered online and delivered, and when we factored in all the charges, it was going to come out to be nearly $800—way out of our price range.

Then I decided that maybe a simple changing table wouldn't be a bad idea after all. I even found one at Babies R Us that had two drawers, so it could function as a dresser as well. But then, the more I thought about it, the more I remembered how much I liked my sister's setup—because her dresser was long enough to accommodate both a changing pad and some space at the end for essentials. Time to start the search again.

Finally, I found a dresser I liked at Burlington Coat Factory. It looked like it would sort of go with the crib (if not match), it had the features we wanted, and it was a killer price. So on Saturday, we ventured out to buy it.

First, they couldn't decide if they had one in stock or not. One person told us they didn't have any, the next person said they had two. We got that sorted out, they brought out the box, and we realized it was assembled, rather than flat-packed as we had assumed it would be. And it wouldn't fit in my car. Whoops!

We took some measurements and hurried home to measure Brandon's car: it would just fit. As we drove back to get it, it started to snow, so we really wanted to hurry and get home. The nice guy helping us brought it out to the car and pointed out a couple of holes in the box. He told us to call right away if we got it home and discovered it had scratches or was damaged at all, and he would put our name on the other one for us to exchange it. So thoughtful! we thought.

We got it home and realized that the thing weighed about 80 pounds in the box. It's also huge, so it wasn't even a matter of Brandon being able to hoist 80 pounds as much as it was "this thing is huge and unwieldy." I wasn't a whole lot of help.

We managed to get it out of the car, from the garage into the house, and onto the stairs with quite a lot of huffing and puffing. Brandon thought maybe we could slide it in the box all the way up the stairs, but the stairs wouldn't cooperate: they were at the wrong angle for sliding, and the box kept getting stuck.

At this point, Brandon said that unless the thing had only three legs or something, there was no way we were taking it back, and I agreed.

At this point, I had the idea that we could take it out of the box, take out the drawers, and then maybe be able to carry it up the stairs. There was no way to slide it out of the box with the box intact, so we ended up cutting the box open on all four sides.

But as we removed the tons of styrofoam and plastic wrapping we discovered that the cabinet door was completely broken off. Clearly, something bad had happened to this dresser. The back was slightly damaged, and one of the drawers wouldn't even open because the four feet (yes, there were four) had been crammed into it so tightly.

But any thoughts of returning the thing had to be banished from our minds: we had so completely destroyed the packaging, there was no way it could be repacked, not to mention the fact that we had come this far and to give up would have felt like failure!

Once we removed the drawers, we found we could carry it upstairs. Luckily, aside from the cabinet door, the damage is relatively superficial. Brandon is trying to fix the door, and may achieve success, but even if he doesn't, having open shelving there won't be the end of the world.

In the end, I was just extremely glad to have the decision made (finally!) and the stupid thing purchased and in the room. I celebrated by setting up my diaper depot, complete with the wipes warmer, and filling the bottom drawer with diapers from the diaper cake at my shower.

It made my back tired, but overall, it made my OCD extremely happy to finally have somewhere to put things away!

Library Lust

I want a library like this. So much.