Where have we been? planning and preparing
It’s almost the end of August and my last blog post covers stuff from July still. Somehow this month has not inspired me to pick up my camera too much. We’ve been in a full blown baby-prep mode each weekend trying to accomplish a number of tasks to get ready, but it’s not tons of fun or super memorable.
Step 1: Make room for another bed.
Josie still sleeps next to us on her mattress, but with another one coming we need to add more bed space and more separate options to help everyone get more sleep. We’ve rearranged our second ‘bed’room to now have room for an actual bed by removing Jordi’s work-at-home desk, putting more shelves in our closet, moving Jordi’s off-season clothes to the basement, putting Jordi’s clothes into our closet, and putting Josie and new baby clothes into what was Jordi’s dresser. Ezzy was very sad to see the dresser, pictured below, leave.
Step 2: Baby diapers
With Josie we used a cloth diaper service for her first year and then washed our own. This time around, we’ve got the hang of the laundry and it will be much cheaper to do it ourselves. I also took some quilting pieces and an old fleece nightgown that flattered no one and made a big pile of cloth wipes (some are on top of the dresser in the picture above). For those interested in the details, we just picked up some organic infant sized prefolds for the new one. We’ve already got the covers since we had that with the service and we’ve got Josie wearing mostly BumGenius 3.0’s right now and those will fit the baby once it gets bigger too and Josie hopefully stops needing them. Plus I’ve got Josie’s old Thirsties AIO size mediums too. The next diapers we’ll need to buy will actually be Josie’s, but I’m crossing my fingers she’ll finish figuring out the toilet before she gains much more weight.
Step 3: Food
I do most of the cooking in the house and while we wouldn’t starve in the first weeks post-baby thanks to takeout and Jordi’s couple of good meals, we’d probably spend a lot more money eating out once the baby comes. So a few weeks ago we bought a chest freezer and I’ve been cooking on the weekends (and once or twice during the week) to start packing it for post-baby easy eating. So far it’s got chili, waffles, chocolate waffles, black bean soup, brown rice, lasagna roll ups, BBQ/sloppy joes, oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough, a few things from costco and meals that some of my mom friends we’re so kind to give to me at my baby shower. This weekend I plan to make lentil soup, black beans, more lasagna roll-ups. Making soup in August has been odd, but we’ll appreciate it come November.
The box the freezer came in has been in our living room for the last three weeks. Josie and the cats have been having a blast with it. I’m sick of looking at it. It’s got one more week before the trashman comes for it. This picture was early on, now it has been well covered in marker, stickers, crayons and the cats have made some ‘improvements’ to the roof like a skylight and textured ceiling.
Step 4: Random house fixes and babyproofing
Now that Josie will likely be able to get a few more steps ahead of me at home and be a bit less supervised while I’m dealing with #2, we’ve stepped up some babyproofing of the big heavy things she has never shown any interested in climbing. We’ve strapped the huge bookcases to the wall and will do the dresser this weekend too. We’ve also been doing other small fixes like cleaning in high places I can’t reach, hammering the nails back into our front porch as they eek their way out in the summer, and tomorrow we need to put a vent cover on our bathroom fan vent to prevent the birds that nest in it each spring from moving back in next year.
All in all if the baby came today we’d be ok, the clothes are washed and the diapers are ready. The kid might not have a name though for a while if it’s a boy, we’re uninspired currently. If you’ve got good ideas, let us know.
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