Friday, June 17, 2011

Now the time has come to say goodbye...

Well, sort of. We're planning The Big Move.  Hayden is four months old and knocking on wood he's sleeping very well through the night, so we're planning to move him into his own room soon.  In fact, the plan is to move him in permanently when we get home from our trip.  I spent the majority of tonight re-organizing the nursery (such as it is) and making his bed.

My folks were very kind to purchase the adorable Eli's Elephants nursery set from Pottery Barn Kids.  When I saw it online, I fell in love.  I didn't realize that they were apparently discontinuing the theme so I couldn't get the mobile, window treatments and all the other cute stuff that would have made Hayden's room a nursery.  I'm disappointed, to say the least, but it doesn't matter.  I've never been one for the match-y match-y stuff, so I can just put something else together on my own.  Tonight, I put the crib skirt down (as much as I could in the Ikea crib we got), put the waterproof pad on our new mattress and put the cute PBK fitted sheet on it.  I had to untie and re-tie the crib bumper to accommodate the mattress, but all told, it looks cute and should be comfortable for Hayden.

But when I walk past his room, which is a lot, I feel like it's empty.  There is nothing on his walls.  To be fair, there's really not much on the walls in our house.  I don't feel like this house is my home, honestly, and I never have.  Over the past seven years we've done little things here and there to personalize an otherwise bland house.  Our walls are mainly still the inoffensive beige that most new construction has, with the kitchen and the guest bathroom being the exceptions.  The kitchen is a bright, lemony yellow that we accented with dark red valences with oranges, lemons and blueberries (I think) decorating them.  It took us about 2 years to get the valences up.  The guest bathroom was a project from a couple of years ago:  sage green with aqua, brown and green accessories.  We hung a drape, just one panel for the one window, in the living room and we have sheer panels in our bedroom.  That's it.  One picture in the living room, a plaque from Margaritaville in the kitchen, an elephant photo series in the hall near a hand-crocheted wall hanging and a golf swing print in the office.

I have a bunch of artwork that I'd love to hang, but it all requires framing, which will be expensive.  Add to that the fact that we're going to be putting the house on the market before too long, so what do I do?  Do I spend a lot of time, effort and money to really decorate the house?  Or do I just wait till we move?  I mean, it's not like Hayden will notice that there isn't anything fun on his walls.  And we don't have enough guests to see that I'm apparently a lazy decorator, so should I really expend the energy?

Well, that's about all I can process for now- it's been a long few days.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Four months already?

Where has the time gone?  My sweet little man is changing so fast! He gets the giggles now...  Mama and Daddy are his favorite comedians, some days.  He's starting to teethe, too, which makes me very nervous.  He's been such a well-mannered little guy, I don't want him to be fussy :(  But he's handling it pretty well.  We go in for his four month checkup next week, I'm pretty sure he's up around 16 lbs and he's probably grown another inch.

He's outgrown his bassinet so we've had to move some furniture around to make room for his pack-n-play in our room.  I'm still not ready for him to sleep in his own room yet.  That, and we don't have his mattress for his crib!  Ooops.  We're planning to make that big move in July when we come home from our extended trip to Kentucky.  Plans are in full-swing for his christening in early July.  He'll be christened at the church where my sister, two cousins, Maggie and I were christened, Daniel was baptized there, I was married there...  It's very special because we grew up in that church.  It was right next door to my mom's parents' house (which is now part of the church as a counseling and meeting area).  The day we're having Hayden christened, church is scheduled to be outside under a big tent down by Owl Creek- which holds fond memories for many of my cousins and me.  We played down by that creek so many springs and summers...  It's a very special thing for us to be able to do this.  It's important to me that Hayden be officially welcomed into God's family.

Little dude is trying really hard to sit up by himself and it takes a LOT of entertaining for him to want to stay on his back anymore.  He seems to want to skip rolling over in favor of just walking.  He loves standing up- with our help, of course.  Nap-time is actually a fairly regular occurrence in our house now, and he's still sleeping like a champ through the night.  I'm so lucky!

Nibbling on Capt. Calamari
Hayden will typically wake up between 5 and 6:00am and want a diaper change and a bottle.  With me, he usually just conks out in my arms while I'm burping him.  With Mike, he'll want to stay up and play...  But he'll usually play himself back to sleep within an hour or so.  He'll typically sleep till about 10:30 or 11 (which is LOVELY for me!) and then we're up for the day.  He's taking naps around 1:00, 5:00 and 8:00 and will generally sleep an hour or two.  We're learning to live together, the three of us, now that Michael is home.  I'm thinking about starting yoga next week- I feel so old and stiff- and I know that I'm going to have an active little boy to keep up with!

We're so excited about our upcoming trip...  We'll be in Louisville for almost a month, so- no excuses!!!  Come visit!