Before I had a baby, it seemed very important to have a nursery. I needed a room for the baby’s clothes and crib and a rocking chair and bookcases and toys and a changing table. A room dedicated to baby’s little life and little things. So we did the guest room shuffle (nice furniture to back bedroom, back bedroom furniture to third floor, third floor boxes to storage space, that’s what it’s all about) and turned the small front room into the baby’s nursery complete with a theme and matching furniture.

Then we brought the baby home and lost the second floor of our house. It just didn’t exist anymore, except for 15 minute blocks of time for a shower or maybe a quick nap in a real bed instead of on the couch. It was definitely too far to go every time my incredibly throw-uppy baby threw up and needed a new outfit. Add diaper changed to clothes changes and the nursery might just as well have been at the top of Mt. Everest. Only hours after getting home from the hospital we gave up all pretense of a nursery and turned our family room into baby central. E dragged the changing table down, we bought an extra diaper pail, a basket for baby clothes and we’ve never looked back.

Ok, I look back. All the time. I hate having that damn changing table in my family room, even if it does make my life easier. It’s big and disorganized and a constant reminder of how lazy I am. It also ruins all my good baby pictures.

Not to mention once the baby was mobile it was impossible to keep him away.

So right after Christmas I decided it was time to get my family room back. Baby Evan thrashes and squirms so much on the table I was changing him on the floor most of the time anyway. Plus we needed something to contain the explosion of baby toys that followed Christmas. I swear those things breed when I’m not looking. A couple of days in the basement, one new set of router bits, and a trip to Home Depot later and E had made my toy box dreams come true.

TADA! One husband made toy box, sturdy enough for climbing, painted with non-toxic VOC-free paint and built to prevent baby finger slamming.

My love of chalkboard paint goes on.

It’s big enough to hold all our toys and stuffed animals and whatever board books happen to be lying around at the moment with room for at least a few more. I can now un-baby the floor after bedtime in about 40 seconds, close the lid and not have to worry about tripping over a squeaky block on my way to the liquor cabinet refrigerator.

And that, my dears, is the story of how Mommy got her family room back.

I guess visiting my parents really gave Baby Evan a sense of where he comes from, because he decided to take part in the long-standing Glidden family tradition of being TERRIBLY HORRIBLY ILL on Thanksgiving. Growing up, someone in our house (usually my sister) was ALWAYS sick on holidays. Thanksgiving? Pneumonia! Christmas? Flu! Easter? Strep throat! Arbor Day? The Plague! National Waffle Appreciation Day? Ebola!

On Wednesday when we got to Ohio we thought the baby was just fussy because of the long car trip. But by 2 am when he refused to be put down even for a second we decided it was more than just fussing. I thought it might be his two top teeth coming through, but when his fever kept getting higher and his wailing kept getting louder, we suspected he might really be sick. E went out on Thanksgiving (thanks People Who Work At The Grocery Store On Holidays!) and bought a thermometer and some infant Tylenol so we could do something – ANYTHING – to help poor Baby Evan feel better. It didn’t work. He spent all day on Thursday alternating between crying himself to exhaustion and passing out from exhaustion only to wake up crying. My entire extended in-law family thinks Baby Evan is a loud, angry, snot-producing machine and feels really really bad for me as the mother of such a difficult baby. For a while I tried to insist he normally wasn’t like this (Read my blog! He’s really good!) but after a while I was too tired to protest and by bedtime I had completely forgotten he had ever been a happy, easy-going child.

If we had been at home during Baby Evan’s First Illness (a milestone I will definitely NOT be putting in the baby book) we would have handled it. I would have been tired, the baby still would have been sick, and it wouldn’t have been over any faster, but it would have been SO. MUCH. EASIER. When you’re a houseguest in a very crowded house, taking care of a sick baby is misery. Thank God E was just as concerned about the baby as I was, because if he hadn’t done his share of nighttime rocking and changing and letting Baby Evan sleep on his chest I may have ended up stabbing a meat thermometer through my hand just for a couple of quiet hours in the hospital.

In the middles of Thursday night his temperature reached 104.5 and I spent two hours waiting for my pediatrician to call me back and insist I take my deathly ill baby to the ER. Instead, a very calm grandmother-type nurse told me a high temp was normal in an 8 month old, he was just fighting off a virus and “he must be your first”. I let her calm me down and her suggestions helped Baby Evan’s temp come down and by Friday morning he started to act more like his normal self.

Now we’re home and he’s so happy to be back in his own bed he may just sleep forever. Well, not FOREVER (And he’s definitely still breathing – I checked. About two dozen times.) but certainly long enough for me to catch up on some of my missing sleep and get started on the pre-holiday decorating clean-a-thon. I’m sure once he realizes there are ornaments to break, ribbon to eat and glitter to roll in he’ll be too excited to ever sleep again.

I am also thankful for…

Stores that are open on Thanksgiving morning.

Infant Tylenol.

Spongebob Squarepants rectal thermometers.

The 24-hour nursing care line who answers my pediatrician’s pages at 1:30 am.

Baby Evan no longer having a temperature of 104.5 degrees and appearing to be on the road to recovery from his cold/flu/sickness/whatever.

I am especially thankful we’re going home tomorrow for a month of NO TRAVELING. Lots of stories, pictures and updates to come…as soon as I’ve made sure my couch hasn’t lost my permanent butt imprint.