Baby's Room

As we sit around waiting for Baby, I keep finding myself looking in her room and imagining an actual baby in there. Sometimes it feels like that is never going to happen, even though she will be here within the next week and a half. We're excited to bring her home to her very own room. I hope she likes it! It's not completely finished - there are still a few things we want to put up on the walls, mostly projects that are not finished. But I think it is looking nice, and we have all the essentials set up.

Baby's room was once our office/sewing room. When we found out we were expecting, we eventually decided to move the office (AKA, our computer desk) into our bedroom and the sewing table down to the living area. We decided to keep the couch in baby's room. It had been in the office for hanging out since it didn't really fit in our living room with our other furniture. So we left it in there for nursing, sleeping, and hanging out with Baby.

We decided on a modern woodland/camp theme. Our interpretation of the theme includes geometric items, such as mountains, trees, arrows (for a bow), feathers, tents, etc. It also includes animals and woodland objects, like foxes, deer, squirrels, pine cones, and acorns. We also wanted to bring a few feminine touches to the room with florals, bows, or lace. All of these things haven't ended up in the room, but they still might. Here is the simple mood board I made (I learned to do this at the design firm I worked for, and I was excited).

The color swatches came from the fabric (behind the couch) I got for some crib sheets and a quilt (which I haven't made yet) and from the floral heart print above the crib. The furniture is an approximation of things we already had or were planning to buy. Anyway, on to the before/afters!

Before:

After:

I intend to get some different accent pillows (or recover some) that will go with the room better.

Before:

After:

Before:

I took this picture after we had already moved the desk into our room. So the computer desk used to be here under the calendar.

After:

I still want to hang some things on this wall above the shelving unit.

We really like how it is turning out! We still want to make or get a wall lamp like the one on the mood board - the wooden deer cutout. That would go on one side of the window above the couch. I'm also working on an embroidery to hang on the wall over the shelving unit. It says "Dream Big Little One," and it has little tents and arrows on it. We have our eyes on some art prints we might like to hang up as well.

So it's a work in progress, but it feels done enough for now. We have the changing station all set up, and her clothes are washed and folded in the dresser. The baby monitor is installed and ready to go (you can see the camera for it above the crib on the left). And we just love the feeling of that sheepskin rug under our bare feet!

At T-3 days until her due date, we can't wait to bring her home and introduce her to her new habitat! People keep asking if there have been any signs of impending labor, and there really haven't been. But my doctor says that some people experience those ahead of time, and some don't. So I promise that the baby will still be born eventually. Some people say that their babies became a little less energetic in the day or two before labor as though the babies were resting up for the big day. Our little one seemed a little more lazy last night and this morning, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up in case that doesn't mean anything. We'll see!

I'll leave you with a funny story about how pregnancy has weird effects on me. Throughout my pregnancy I've felt more connected to animals; I've never been a huge animal person, but I find myself very concerned about them now. When I was only a few months along, Jake and I were watching a documentary about zebra migration in Africa. They talked about how some male zebras would acquire new females whose mates had died on the journey, but sometimes the female would already be pregnant with her dead mate's offspring. When they showed how the male zebras would try to beat the baby zebra to death because they knew it was not their own, I was horrified and covered my eyes. It made me so upset. Squirrels have been the strongest connection to our baby. Whenever I see a squirrel running around, which is quite often, I think of our baby. And I tear up any time I see a squirrel that has been hit by a car.

Anyway, this is just background to try to help you understand why I am crazy in this story. It had been snowing here for days, and we hadn't seen very many animals out our back window. So Jake went out and filled our bird feeder and placed some seeds on our step to bring around some birds and squirrels. It worked, and soon we had a squirrel out on our back step feasting on some seeds. Jake and I were enjoying watching him eat and twitch his little tail. As I turned around to go to the kitchen, the squirrel stopped what he was doing and watched me go. Jake said, "He's watching you leave." I chuckled a little and told Jake the words that had instantly popped into my head were, "That's because he knows I'm his mommy." He laughed so hard and made fun of me for the rest of the day. Pregnancy has made me so crazy, I now think I am a squirrel's mother. It's time, Baby. Please come and relieve me of this craziness soon.