When I was pregnant, I folded all their little outfits into the chest of drawers upstairs. I set up a changing station in their room. I put all their extra things into a multi-shelf unit in their closet. All was a blissful dream of using their nursery and creating this little dream world. As I have mentioned before, their nursery now stands unused. It has become a storage room for all the things they have outgrown. The chest of drawers that I forced my husband to empty of all his clothes now stands empty.
I imagine a world with one child is much different. But, with two, it just never seemed possible to leave one unattended while I schlepped it upstairs to do what needed to be done. After the boys came home, the diaper changing station for the pack-and-play was quickly set up. Baskets were brought downstairs to house their clothes and blankets. The basinet of the pack-and-play became their daytime crib.
Those baskets of clothes still sit in my living room. They now house PJs, tops, and pants. The nicer changing table was moved downstairs. I transitioned the babies from the pack-and-play, to the “drop zone” (see previous post) to a dog bed. Don’t laugh! A large rectangular dog bed makes the perfect baby nap spot. When they wake up, they just crawl off and go back to playing! (They were so used to napping in the same room as me they do not wake up from sounds.) They only started to nap upstairs in their crib at 8 months.
My living room is total chaos. Total and complete chaos. In this room we get dressed and nurse in our rocking recliner. In this room we fall asleep and then get carried upstairs. In this room we play and throw all our toys and books everywhere. In this room we eat at the table and throw our unwanted food on the floor. In this room we snuggle and play. And, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
