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Yesterday after Mark headed out for a day of climbing with Joe, I started to feel restless. I looked around at all the boxes of baby stuff piling up, all the bins of clothes, blanket and towels lacking organization and took action.
First I sorted through all the bins and separated them (i.e. clothes, blanket, bath stuff, feeding stuff and so on) so I could figure out how many more bins I needed to make this organized. Then I folded all the babies clothes (which I washed this week and put them away).
Then I went went through all the boxes and took all the things we would not need right away downstairs to the basement (toddler gym, travel bed and so on).
Then I busted the pack and play out of the box and went to put it together a) to make sure it did not need to be returned and b) So then I could break it down into the travel bag and put it in the basement. This by far was NOT an easy task when ones hands are SWOLLEN so much that is caused carpel tunnel (my fingers constantly go numb and certain movements cause immense pain). The swollen hands made simple tasks like snapping snaps painful. Not to mention, who does the instruction books for these things. All they do is show you the parts and then a couple of pictures. . . if you are LUCKY it has one or two instructions but not really. It is like some man said ha ha she is pregnant and hormonal lets see if we can make her crack over a pack and play. The changing table attachment was the worst, Bella was watching me wearily while I was cursing over it. . .just in case it flew across the room in a moment of frustration. But after MANY choice words and having to walk away a few times I got it together. However, by this point my hands were so swollen and sore I could not break it back down so I pushed it into the corner to wait for Mark to get home. Even though I would of rather of broken it down before hand so he would not think I was crazy for putting it together with 5-9 weeks before the baby arrives.
Here is the finished product:
After that, I put together the car seat (which was MUCH easier) and added on the cute car seat toy that Nancy gave me. I resisted the urge to put it in my car. Ha ha. Gotta love the nesting, want everything to be ready and perfect mode.
After that, Unpacked and figured out the bottle warmer. I put batteries in all the toys. And then I cleared out all the boxes.
Then I hit the road. First I went to buy Mark's birthday present (his birthday is Sept 2nd if anyone needed the reminder). Then I went by REI to make sure they had our stroller in the color we wanted for the sale price they had online. After that I went to babies-r-us where with the gift cards Rebecca gave me I bought the extra car base for Mark's car (damn these things are expensive), a sheet for the pack and play, a set of baby hangers and some mitts to keep her from scratching her face. I must admit I spent about 30 minutes looking at all the clothes. ESP the cute little coats and faux down vests. But I resisted the urge.
After Babies-R-us I went to Wal-mart, where I picked up my online order of the changing pad and the ocean wonders mobile. Since they said I had to take it out in the box it came in (which was HUGE) they had to get me a cart. Go figure the only cart they had was a huge gardening cart, so here I am this huge pregnant lady with a huge box on a huge cart going down these narrow aisles. Thanks wal-mart.
After Wal-Mart I headed over to Bed, Bath and Beyond. . where I finally exhausted the WONDERFUL wedding gift card from Melis, Rockstar and Angi and bought three more canvas bins (in brown and green) for the babies stuff. But of course I had to stop at the bathroom first, as I am pregnant and we must pee every 30 minutes at the minimum and I have been holding it in for an hour. I can honestly say that bathroom stalls are not built with pregnant women in mind. When you try to shut the stall door you find that your belly is blocking its path, so you have to straddle the toilet to get the door closed. Fun fun. When I attempted to leave the bathroom I found that the staff was unloading some furniture from the back room blocking the exit to the bathroom (Mark does this count for a false imprisonment lawsuit???) They apologized and I waited fie minutes while they moved it all out of the way. They were nice enough to offer me some cleaning supplies to entertain myself while I waited. Ha ha. No thank you.
I was dehydrated so of course before my next stop what better to do then refill my bladder (Spoon does seem to think it is a trampoline when it is full, so I try to oblige). So I stopped at chic-fila for a caffine free diet coke. One of the FEW places that has that . . .God bless them. Ha ha.
My last stop was target where I loaded a crib matress into their tiny shopping cart and tried not to brain anyone with it or knock displays down as I made my way to the cash register. Of course I must admit I did stop in the clothing section and got a few cute things for $5 or less (they had the cutest jean skirt.. . who could resist). Then I played reverse Jenga to get it all in my car (cutting my hand in the process . .. mean hangers).
When I arrived home, Mark was still out so I unloaded my car quickly before the rain started. It took about 5 trips with Bella checking out everything very carefully as it came in just in case there was food involved.
After Mark arrived home (and laughed at all I had done) we headed back out and got the BOB stroller. LOVE it but damn that was our most expensive item, it better last as long as everyone promises.
Now minus the shelf for the baby stuff we have pretty much all of our big items. Thank the lord. It is nice to feel a little more prepared. As if the night could not get any more organized we sat down and figured out how we were going to arrange everything and decided to set it up the following weekend.
Of course it did not continue that way. The next morning we put together the crib, which looks a LOT better when it is put together (yippeee for the $20 garage sale crib) and put the mattress in. It looked pretty good.
Of course once we got it together we realized that it was way bigger than the space we were thinking of putting it in. . . and not only that it was bigger than anywhere we measured. I guess I am prepared with some things but I still have a LOOOONG way to go.
I do need a break now because my whole body ACHES!!!!!
Oh and for those who I have been talking about it too I start hostessing on Monday which should give my body a much needed break. :) Wish me luck!
