Bo's Room

This is my very favorite room in the house.

We still have a little work to do - for instance, figuring out what to put on the wall over his crib. But getting this room completed for Bo to move in was quite a labor of love - especially when he showed up early and threw our completion plans off a bit!

It turns out it's a little bit harder to do construction when you have a sleepy newborn hanging out at your house. The room is fairly small and there wasn't a lot of room for storage, so Matt had designed and built the cubbies and drawers in the closet. The only problem was he built them at our neighbor's and they had to be installed and painted in the room. (And this was the primary reason that it took us 7 weeks to finally move into his room... we were quite ready to evict our noisy little roommate sooner than that!) But now that it is done, I love the closet. The boy has more room to store his clothes than his momma does!

The changing table was also another labor of love. Meaning that, Matt really really really loves me to have finished that one for me. I got this idea in my head (blame Pinterest) that it would be super easy to find an old dresser and paint and refinish it to make a changing table. Well, I found an old dresser... but that was about as far as I got. It turned out my "find" was in rough shape (a drawer fell apart in Matt's hands) and the top of it had to be completely replaced. Oh and I was 36.5 weeks pregnant when I brought this home. Oops. Matt took it over and sanded, sanded, sanded, repaired drawers, placed new hardware on, painted and replaced the cracked wooden top with a piece of remnant granite. I'll post a before and after picture on another post. My jaw hit the floor when I saw the finished piece. It is almost too nice to be a changing table. But, since it weighs 100 pounds with the granite, it will stay in that room and be a changing table for every kid we have.

And in keeping with the theme of "Meghan bites off more than she can chew", the "B" was also a project I started (darn you, Pinterest) and couldn't finish. I literally went into labor while I was working on that and had only about 1/5th of it done. My saintly sister took it home and finished it up the last week of her summer vacation.

The curtains were sewn by my momma, the stuffed animal holder is a window box hanger from Lowe's that we spray painted and the lamp was a garage sale find that was formerly pink and got the spray paint treatment also. The quilt (on the floor) was sewn by my mom's friend, the rocking chair was a Babies R Us floor model clearance item (woohoo!), the lovey was inspired by Quinn's donkey and picked out by my sister, the pillow (in the chair) came from my in-law's, the bookshelves were in my bedroom growing up and the xylophone was a gift from my brother after he saw me admire it in an antique store.

I think this little boy is going to like growing up in this space just fine, don't you?

Meeting Uncle MPC

We had a great visit with my brother this week.

It really saddens me that he lives so far away (San Diego), but fortunately I have a very travel-willing family and Bo has gotten to meet everyone in his immediate extended family now.



We had such a great week visiting with Uncle Mike (and my momma, who came to help!) I've seen my brother be so hands on and helpful with our younger cousins and cousin's kids throughout the years, and he didn't miss a beat when it came to getting to know his new little nephew. In fact, one of the best advantages of him being a night owl stuck on pacific coast time was his willingness to take on the 2 am feeding so I got a little extra sleep. Woohoo!






Bo also went on his first road trip while Mike was visiting. We have two cousins who live in Charlotte who we were very close with growing up in Rochester, but rarely get to see anymore with everyone going different directions at holidays. So on Friday, we headed down to Charlotte to have dinner with lots & lots of Claffeys. Good thing Bo is too little to know the chaos that ensues when our large, rambutcinous clan gets together - he happily slept in arms while people played pass the baby. We got to see my aunt & uncle (who live in Rochester but were down visiting), my cousin & her husband & their four kids and my other cousin & her fiancé. (As well as, of course, my sister and her husband.) On Sunday, my engaged cousin had her wedding shower so we saw 2 more aunts and another cousin who I literally have not seen in a DECADE. A decade, people.

My brother made the comment as we were driving back home from our weekend of family time how there's something sort of sad about the fact that families spread out so much these days. You know, it used to be that most people grew up and stayed in relative proximity to their hometowns and it meant entire families were in the same small town. Of course, there are downsides to this… my family, like any family, can drive each other absolutely bonkers and it's easy to romanticize the notion of everybody sharing one zip code. But there's something about having a small baby that makes you relish the feeling of community - the "all hands on deck" approach that seems to happen whenever there's a new tiny family member - and it does make me a little bit sad that my family (and many of my dearest friends) are so far flung and our get togethers are so infrequent. To see my one cousin for the first time in a decade - it's kind of crazy. The last time I saw her she was a ten year old. Now she's getting ready to graduate college, and looking for jobs and is a beautiful, grown up articulate woman. (And, she also just so happens to be a bit of baby whisperer.)



I did try to take advantage of that conversation about far flung families to try and convince my brother to move to the Dash, but I don't think I was successful. San Diego over Winston-Salem? Weird, right? I guess until teleportation technology improves a little bit, we'll have to make do with frequent flyer miles and instagram photos and FaceTime to keep our villages close at hand.

Messy, Messy, Messy!

It's taken me a few weeks to get the hang of iPhoto and in doing so, I've been digging up old photos from the last few months since my photos are now amazingly organized by "events" (dates) without me doing anything. I am totally convinced my computer is smarter than I am. (Especially because I just googled "smarter than me vs smarter than I.") Anyways, in sorting through my new folders, I came across this series of pictures of a Saturday afternoon at the end of June.

I had had 2 baby showers in May and then took off for about 5 weekends in a row of travel. It was lots of fun, but in the meantime I had schlepped everything baby to the back of the to do list.

Including organizing all my baby stuff. At one point, our bonus room looked the warehouse of Babies R Us. The room that was to become Bo's room was formerly our "catch all" closet - I had stashed everything from crafting supplies to off season dresses to holiday decorations. When Matt started working on Bo's closet, all of those were moved to the guest room. It was absolute baby clutter chaos taking over 2/3rds of our upstairs!

After all that travel and with the impending arrival of my mom coming to visit (and you know, needing to actually use the bed) I had to get cracking. Apparently, I also felt the need to document it.

Before: Messy, messy, messy!
{Bonus points to you if you said that in the "Frosty the Snowman" voice.}

After: The chaos is tamed, order is restored.

I love a dramatic before & after... especially when it's my own house. There's something about a clean room and made-up bed that makes me go "ahhhh...." I can't be the only weirdo out there who feels the need to document and relish in the simple act of restoring order to a messy room. (Right?)

Obviously, the work was exhausting for everyone involved... (including our two little canine houseguests, Ema & Watson!)

Mustache

I mustache you a question...

But I'll shave it for later.

Tummy Time

Let’s call it what it really is: pissed off baby time.

Kickoff!

Tailgate season is upon us once again!

Or as some people like to call it: football season.

The fact that there’s a game we attend is really just a minor detail in my grand scheme of thing. (This is where my husband starts to wonder why he bothers to buy me a season ticket...) Don’t get me wrong – I actually enjoy watching football now and can for the most part keep up with what’s happening on the field. But I am still partial to the action that happens before we get into the stadium: the meal planning & preparation, the picking out of my black & gold outfit each week and of course, the eating, drinking and schmoozing once we arrive. Go Deacs!

For the first game, my sister and I popped by the tailgate for an hour and brought Bo to introduce him to tailgate life. It was a little hot out, so we didn’t stay for the game. Bo was on his best behavior and enjoyed getting passed around and snuggled by all his aunties.

Last week our tailgate was a little more involved. The game was at 3:00 which meant we got to do a two meal tailgate: breakfast around 10:00 (mimosas, of course) and then a later lunch before heading into the game. Matt’s parent’s came up to watch Bo since we were going to be gone the majority of the day. The tailgate was a great success with about 22 people attending and we even had extra reason to celebrate since 2 friends had gotten engaged the night before!

(I borrowed this picture from Anne. Don’t mind Kelley wearing the wrong colors. She doesn’t know any better.)

We were packing up the tailgate to head into the game when all of a sudden the skies opened up and let loose. It was quite a torrential downpour.  Good timing that we had barely gotten the tailgate packed up! Although it only lasted about ten minutes or so, we learned there would be a game delay of 45 minutes to see if another storm cell was going to pass over us.

So we did what seemed most logical: pulled out one table, one tent and a bunch of solo cups and started a flip cup tournament. Those 45 minutes standing in the drizzle with everyone crowded around the table, cheering, yelling and spilling beer (and then champagne) everywhere will go down as one of my favorite tailgate memories. Usually we’re all spread out among our three tents, eating and chatting or people are off playing cornhole or washers. Despite the bad weather all around us, it was so fun to have everyone squeeze together under one tent and hang out together before heading into the game.

I was honestly a little disappointed when the fun was over and it was time to head into the game! Looks like I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, as the student section remained pathetically empty the whole game.

Fortunately though, the Deacs won and it turned out to be an exciting and close game against our I-40 rivals, the Tar Heels. And in just a few weeks, we’ll get to do it all over again… minus, hopefully, the pre-game monsoon.

Go Deacs!

Some Days

Some days don’t go as planned.

Okay, well, truthfully no days go as planned with a 5 week old because newborns, by definition, don’t follow a plan.

But some days….

Some days are less predictable than the unpredictable.

I have to say, I think as far as newborn babies go I’ve been spoiled. Yes, I wake up 3-4 times a night. Yup, he fusses and cries when he’s hungry, getting his diaper changed, doesn’t like the onesie I’ve picked out, is being held in a position he finds disagreeable or just because it’s Tuesday. Sure, it’s physically and mentally demanding to be on call to a tiny 10 lb dictator at all times. That’s newborn life. But generally, I think as far as 5 week olds go, he’s pretty good. He’s consolable when he’s upset, he’s got his days and nights straight and he’s stinking adorable. (That last one counts for a lot, y’all.)

We’ve fallen into a nice little rhythm over here over of eat, “play” and sleep with fairly regular naps throughout the day and longer stretches at night. I’m not finishing any novels over here during naptime, but I’m generally finding time to squeeze a shower in or cook the occasional meal.

So of course, I had the audacity yesterday to think “This newborn thing ain’t so bad. We’re figuring this out, me and the little Bo biscuit!”

Good job, Megs. Way to tempt the universe.

Today gave me one of those days. The funny thing was it followed one of his best nights of sleep – 2 four stretches in a row! FOUR HOURS. Do you know how awesome it feels to sleep four hours in a row when you’ve been averaging 2-3? Really, really, really awesome.

After a decent morning nap, I loaded him up in the stroller and we set off on a walk. I thought he’d nap while I strolled, but nope… too much to look at! Birds! Trees! Sky! Clouds! Trucks! Mom’s face!

And then… it all went downhill from there. Well – not the walk …that was actually mostly uphill. The day. And naps. Naps went downhill. No nap in the stroller. No nap when we got home. Just … fussing. And then screaming. Screaming! Oh hello, lungs. I’m glad you work.

Eventually I put him in my K’tan carrier and walked around the house doing laundry and dishes and the likes and he fell asleep, and I thought “aha! success!” and I put him in his swing. I crept out of the room with my fingers crossed and waited. Nope. Nothing doing. Wide awake again.

After 3 unsuccessful attempts at napping in his swing (his usual spot), Bo and I laid down on the bed together, both of us exhausted. I sang him a few songs and told him a few stories and was planning to move him to his swing. When I saw his little eyes shut and his body shudder with that last exhausted “I give up” sigh…. I couldn’t bring myself to move him. Asleep! Finally!

And then… I faced a predicament. He can’t roll, right? He’s only 5 weeks old. 5 week olds can’t roll, right?

But what if he did? What if I was that mom on the news and they were all “SHE LEFT HIM ALONE ON THE BED TO GO LOAD THE DISHWASHER AND HE ROLLED RIGHT OFF.”

Or what if Buddy jumped up there? (He can’t jump up there.) What if he rolled on his side? (He can’t roll.) WHAT IF THE CEILING FAN FELL ON HIM?

So obviously I had no choice but to spend the remainder of his nap sitting on the bed with him, watching him intently. (I finally slunk off to get my computer and caught up on emails, including an back and forth with friend Kathryn on what topic? Newborn sleep. Oh the irony!) He slept for about an hour and a half, which thankfully reset our day – and his mood.

Some days. Some days you just can’t predict.

It could be worse – we had nowhere to go and nothing to do. I mean, I have things to do – there are bottles to made, laundry to be folded, photos to edit, produce to wash and chop, mail to be sorted, phone calls to be made – but really, nothing that had to be done. Today I had the luxury to sit on my bed and watch my newborn sleep for 90 blissful minutes, even though it wasn’t what I had predicted I would do that day.

But it’s been a bit of an exhausting day, what with the middle 4-hours trying to cuddle, bounce, shush, sway, rock or soothe a fussface into sleep. Which is why, now that he is down for solid nap #2 (in the swing), instead of making the bottles, folding the laundry, or chopping the produce, I’m drinking a margarita, writing a blog and watching About a Boy. Because some days… some days you just can’t predict how they will go.