The winner of Giveaway Week Day 1: Allora Handmade is…

#49 Majestic Domestic aka Bonnie!

Congrats!! I will forward your info to Jessica so she can set you up with your shop credit. I advise you to spend it on yourself and not try to do the nice thing and buy anyone a Christmas present. You’ll just resent them later because they’re wearing YOUR rosettes.

Yesterday, I had a friend tell me that although I am very very pregnant I am “all belly”. It was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said and definitely goes on the “appropriate to say to a pregnant woman” side of the list. I’m not even going to evaluate whether or not it’s true. I certainly feel very belly-ful and can also still get my non-maternity pants on – I just can’t button them. Or zip them. But my butt fits!

The glider we ordered from Babies R Us came in on Saturday. Of course it wasn’t until we got it home, up the stairs and right side up that we realized the gliding mechanism is TOTALLY defective. One of the screws is rubbing against the metal frame, making a terrible noise and preventing any sort of gliding from taking place. No, it cannot be bent back into place – trust me, we tried. E spent ALL DAY Monday trying to get a hold of the company, because it says in GIANT ORANGE LETTERS on the packaging “DO NOT RETURN TO STORE – CALL 1-800-BLAH BLAH”. So of course when they FINALLY called him back they said “Oh yeah, you should return it to the store.” Luckily, Babies R Us was willing to do an even-exchange and get us another (hopefully non-defective) one in 7-10 days. You can bet your ass we’re opening the box right there in the store to make sure it’s not all screwed up too. No way we are dragging ANOTHER chair home again just to drag it back.

(Side note: It took three different people almost a full hour to figure out HOW to do the even-exchange. One cashier literally just stared at the receipt for five full minutes while I stared at her staring. I *know* retail computer systems can be confusing but SERIOUSLY? CALL A MANAGER. OR SOMETHING. I have four different pieces of paper that show how much I paid and I don’t even want my money back.)

The new master bedroom is closer to being done than not done but we’re trapped in renovation limbo until the carpet goes in on Thursday, which means my clothes are in one room, E’s clothes are in another, there’s a banister in our guest room, bed rails in the nursery and we’re sleeping on mattresses on the floor of the 3rd floor. And by “floor” I mean bare plywood. BUT! My new closet organizer is in! I haven’t had a real closet in 3 years and am using this bedroom move to viciously edit my wardrobe down to stuff I actually wear and by actually wear I mean wear on a regular, consistent basis and not just for a couple of hours once every few months so I can feel less guilty about not giving it away.

I’ve started having nightmares about giving birth. I had them last time too, but figured since things went pretty well with Baby Evan I’d be a little calmer this time. The dreams never involve the actual BIRTH part, just weird hospital frustrations and baby mix-ups and birth certificates with “Special Snowflake Davis” on them. But they’re the kind of dreams that you wake up from just as exhausted as when you collapsed into bed after chasing around the world’s fastest toddler all day.

And because now that it’s November no one really cares about Halloween costumes anymore, this is where I share pictures of Little Evan in his costume(s).

He still thinks tiny gourds are delicious. Even ones he originally called "BALL" and threw at passersby.

I taught him that monkeys scratch their armpits and say "Oooo ooo ooo!" This is his best try.

There are pants that go with that costume too, but considering THIS is the meltdown that occured when I tried to get him to take a picture with me, the fight over the pants was totally not worth it.

Yes, I DID buy a second costume to dress Evan in for answering the door. There are a limited number of years you can dress up kids without their input and I'm taking FULL advantage. (Also: He is not holding a candle. Tiny LED candle-like light)

Despite this face, he actually LOVED the outfit. Except for the hat part. Why don't they make costumes without hats?

P.S. The rest of the giveaways are still open but Uff Da closes tonight!
Day 2 is open until November 2nd! Uff Da Designs
Day 3 is open until November 3rd! Taradara
Day 4 is open until November 4th! Peggy Ann Design
Day 5 is open until November 5th! aPearantly Sew
Day 6 is open until November 6th! Gussy
Day 7 is open until November 7th! A knit Phoebe Mouse…by ME!
Day 8 is open until November 8th! Hugs & Kisses Designs

Is there anything better than Ikea?

This is just the tip of the giant Swedish iceberg

I bought a yard of Ikea fabric while in Minneapolis to use as “inspiration” for the new nursery/playroom but I’m already changing my mind about it. It’s very…yellow. And the green is sort of a split-pea-avocado shade that may be too modern for me. It does have adorable birds and a fantastic amount of orange so I’m hesitant to trash it, but it may end up as a single throw pillow instead of the main color scheme.

I’m sort of shocked at my total NON-desire to do Baby Sandy’s nursery in pink and purple and crystals and ruffles and flowers. I want primary colors and clean lines and shapes and animals and have no plans to paint the almost-white walls and beige-yellow moldings. (And not just because I hate painting, especially trim.) My taste in nursery decor has pulled a total 180 in the past year and a half. Maybe I’ve been looking at too many nursery tours on Ohdeedoh. Or spending too much time stalking Morgan at The 818.

For example, if I had had a girl the first time I think I would have gone TOTALLY overboard with the nursery theme.

Like this. Only PINKER. With a giant chandelier.

Or this one. Only SPARKLIER.

OR THIS ONE. Which I will admit is pretty cool. Really cool. I kind of want to go to there.

I think it’s good I came to my senses for Baby #2, don’t you? (My husband may have just pulled a muscle from nodding too hard.)

So here’s my question: BESIDES Ikea, where should I be shopping for nursery stuff? Pottery Barn Kids is…boring. I get the CB2 catalog but none of it is very baby-friendly. Same with West Elm (and holy over-priced end tables Batman!) Should I just start stalking Craigslist with a passion?

P.S. So we actually WENT to Ikea Sunday and I bought…none of the above. I did buy this:

EDLAND dresser

It is MUCH paler gray in person and will match both the yellow & beige walls & carpet and that fabric I’m growing to like more and more every time I look at it. Plus, it’s huge. I’m going to put it in Baby Evan’s room for now (to solve our current NO DRESSER problem) and move it into the new nursery once we get our renovations done.

I also bought the easel I’ve seen approximately fourteen different people blog about this month, with a chalkboard on one side and a white board on the other PLUS  giant roll of paper you can pull over it for crayons. Baby Evan is a little young for it still (did you know chalk will write on almost any surface, including your own face? BABY EVAN DOES) but I mentioned it at least forty times as we walked through the store and E wanted me to shut the hell up likes buying me things I want.

Next time, I’m going to mention the moose rocker.

I learned some lessons on round 1 of the baby ride, especially when it came to baby gear. We bought stuff we liked, we bought stuff we hated, we bought stuff that seemed unnecessary but is OMG VITALLY IMPORTANT and we bought stuff that seemed VITALLY IMPORTANT but ended up being useless.

I discovered a “co-sleeper” is just a  fancy word for “$150 bassinet” and if you plan to actually sleep with the baby you can save yourself $150.

The high chair I thought was very very necessary is collecting dust in the dining room while the clamp-on Phil & Ted’s chair I thought was probably a huge waste of money gets used 3x a day.

Nursery bedding sets are a joke. Buy a pack of 3 fitted sheets. The end.

If your baby hates tummy time, there is no tummy time mat on the planet that will convince them they don’t.

Sometimes a $7 umbrella stroller is all you need – and sometimes spending $400 on a car seat is totally worth it.

But if there was one most important lesson I learned, it’s to READ THE REVIEWS and LISTEN TO YOUR FRIENDS when it comes to baby stuff. If someone on the internet says “Hey, this high chair had a bunch of pieces fall off after a few weeks” they’re probably not making that up. And when your friend says “My kid REALLY loves that Sophie giraffe teether thing” you should stop balking at the $21 price tag and just BUY ONE. So when it comes to the stuff we’re going to need for round 2, I’m not spending a single cent until I get some advice from you.

We need a crib. Eventually. After Baby Sandy starts sleeping in 4 hour chunks of time, outgrows the co-sleeper and I decide I need my bed back. I’m thinking Ikea – they seem pretty well liked, I don’t think they’ve had any major recalls, and some even convert to toddler beds.

Advice needed #1: Does anyone own an Ikea crib they love? Or hate?

We need at least one double stroller. Probably two. I want a side-by-side jogger for Stroller Strides and in case I ever actually, you know, jog. Plus I want a tandem double for regular use, like at the mall or the aquarium or walking around the neighborhood. Since I’m not really interested in the jogging part, my plan is to buy a used side-by-side cheap (like really cheap, like probably from my friend Sarah for $20)(if she still has it)(Hey Sarah, I still want your jogger) and invest in a tandem.

Advice needed #2: Does anyone have a tandem double stroller they love? Or hate? My top choices so far are the Baby Jogger City Select, the (much more afforable) Kolcraft Contour Options Tandem II, the Phil & Teds Inline, or the Uppa Baby VISTA with the doubles kit. Advice on the brands in general is also welcome.

And I think we need another glider/rocking chair. The glider in Baby Evan’s nursery was such a last-minute decision – I had resisted buying one, mostly because the ones at Babies’R’Us seemed so expensive – but it gets used more than any other piece of baby equipment except for the crib. Our current glider is from Target. It is…functional. I mean, the arms are really loose and one of them keeps coming unattached and several screws seem to have fallen out and it squeaks a lot and it doesn’t recline so you can’t really sleep in it. But it still rocks. I guess we’ve gotten our money’s worth in the last 18 months.

Advice needed #3: PLEASE recommend your glider. It doesn’t have to be expensive but it can be. I learned my lesson when it comes to cheap chairs.

That’s it. Unless you have an absolute favorite baby item you cannot live without and want to recommend. Especially if it’s the sort of thing that helped you survive life with TWO children. Because I’m more than willing to take advice.

Giant pile of baby clothes

This is our guest room. Or at least it used to be our guest room. At the moment it’s an extremely large storage closet for Baby Sandy’s things. In that giant pile of stuff, I purchased exactly TWO items – the onesie I got at the Handmade Market and the Uff Da dress right in the front. (Because literally SECONDS after I found out the baby was a girl I was stalking Emily’s site like it was the last source of baby clothes on Earth. I CAN’T WAIT to have an actual baby to wear that dress. And maybe this dress. And this clippie. Which I totally did not buy “for the baby” but wear myself. Nope.)

The REST of that pile is hand me downs. Three giant boxes from my incredibly generous local friend Julie (some of which are second hand hand me downs and yet practically new) full of PINK PINK PINK, two boxes from the gorgeous and stylish Emmie Bee stuffed with Baby Gap, adorable Christmas PJ’s from my friend Sarah, and tiny sized cloth diapers from my friend Cheri.

And then there’s this:

If the shelf looks crooked it's because IT IS. The top part broke from the weight of that many dresses & sweaters.

Those are the vintage baby clothes my mom saved. Some of them are HERS, as in, she wore them as a baby. Amazing. Oh and that shoe holder in the door is 50% bonnets (BONNETS!!! NOT EVEN HATS!), 25% bloomers and 25% shoes or tights. I squee every time I go in there.

And then I cry a little thinking about where I’m going to put it all.

The sad part is this is not the nursery. It’s a guest bedroom we actually plan to use for guests several times in the coming weeks and where my mom will be living when she comes up to rescue me from total exhaustion and failure help with the new baby. Eventually all the baby stuff is supposed to move to the current master bedroom/future second nursery + playroom and our master bedroom will move to the third floor/current junk room + second guest bedroom if we’re REALLY desperate. This pile and closet are just a temporary solution until we can get the rest of the house sorted out – a task I was SUPER EXCITED about for exactly a week, until I actually went up to the third floor and looked at how much stuff we have. Too much. Way too much. I was all set to begin the organizing and moving and getting rid of stuff! Making room in my life! I could totally host a show about how decluttering is the key to true happiness!!

Until I went through a giant box of clothes I haven’t fit in since 2004 and only managed to give away 4 pairs of pants. And one skirt. Things I did not manage to give away include a pair of bleached, holey jeans embroidered with flowers, a tank top that says “bride” in rhinestones, and plastic pink high heeled flip flops (yes, you read that correctly).

There are at least seven more boxes like that one. And that doesn’t include E’s stuff.

Maybe I should stop taking people’s hand-me-downs until I can get rid of some of my own.

Or maybe I’ll just move it all to the basement and try to forget about it. Baby Sandy doesn’t REALLY need a nursery, right?

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.