After writing about WIC the other day, I felt it was time to share a bit about my home and share how much we actually have to get done (in about three months!) to really prepare for baby.
The husband and I live in a 1000-square-foot apartment with our dog, a Cardigan Welsh Corgi. It’s a decent amount of space for the three of us, and I’m not sure how much more crowded it will feel with an infant. I can only imagine it will feel like a rapidly shrinking space once our baby is moving and especially walking around.
Our apartment may not be large, but it meets our needs. We have two bedrooms, one bathroom, kitchen, living room, and laundry closet. Right now, our second bedroom (henceforth known as the extra bedroom and/or future nursery) is home to, among other things, my clothes in the closet, two overly full bookshelves, the top half of an entertainment center (full of my crafting and teaching supplies), and various boxes and other things. In other words, it’s a complete disaster area that needs to be set up for baby.
Now, a lot of my friends have recently had babies or are pregnant. I go onto social media and see posts about their adorable nurseries and wonder what it would be like to have a dedicated nursery. Then I remember: our baby will be an infant. Infants don’t care about decorations and cutesy things put together just for them. They care about sleeping and eating and pooping. So I try not to get too caught up in what my friends are doing.
That said, we do have to do something to make the room a bit more livable, and while all the pieces of furniture in the extra bedroom are fully functional and in use right now, there’s not much space leftover for other baby furniture, like the crib sitting propped up against the window. Not to mention, my parents recently gave us boxes of books and multi-media for us to sort through and dispose of as we see fit. I’ve since sorted through the boxes, but we haven’t made the trip to the local used bookstore where we’ll attempt to sell it all for store credit.
So we have those boxes littering the floor. We have the printer on the floor because there’s no room on his desk in the living room. We have various teaching supplies that get set out, used, and not put back into a proper place because I’m not an organized person. We have some of my clothes, shoes, and hangers to be sorted into the closet. And we have a crib to assemble.
My problem is that I have no idea how to get this room into tip-top shape for baby. Sure, I can clean and organize what’s in there. I can vacuum and put a crib together. But what I can’t do is figure out the space issue. My grandmother plans to give us a rocking chair to use for baby, and it’s the same rocking chair my parents used for me when I was an infant. I’m excited about this, but at the same time, we have no space for it in the living room, master bedroom or extra bedroom.
I’ll likely be looking at Pinterest and searching the web for ways to make my small space work better because realistically, we need to find a way to make everything fit since all the furniture is actually being used in that room. I have no idea what it’s going to look like, and I may end up needing family and friends to help me conceptualize it because right now I just can’t.
I guess I’ll post an update once we have it sorted out a bit more. But then we’ll have to sort the master room for a bassinet or pack-n-play! It’s always something, isn’t it?
With love,
A Slightly Stressed Pregnant Lady