Moving on up

Earlier this year, we started discussing transitioning Elle to a big girl bed. She never tried to climb out of the crib, thankfully, but we knew that eventually she needed to be out of the crib, and as I got bigger and more pregnant, it was getting harder for me to put all 30+ pounds of her to bed without hurting myself.

One of her last times in the crib.

I started shopping around, and we picked out a bed frame that I really liked - something that I think will grow with her, allow decorating diversity, etc. Elle was excited about the whole process and was ecstatic when we found a bedding set with pink (her favorite color!) and a cute little owl pillow (bonus!). I was excited that we found almost exactly what I had in mind within two days of searching AND at a really good price. (And it's going to be super easy for me to semi-match the crib bedding and curtains while she and the baby share a room - score!) She kept asking when she could have her big girl bed. The problem was that the bed frame was out of stock and wouldn't ship for several weeks. We got the mattress a few days later, though, so I decided we'd just make the transition even more gradual while we waited for the frame to ship.

On March 15, I quickly deconstructed the crib and set up the mattress after dinner without her knowing. The crib will be put back up a few months after Wesley's arrival, but we don't have a lot of space and we don't need an extra place for the cats to nap, so it's packed away in a closet until then. She was sooooooo excited to sleep in her big girl bed. She kept hugging the mattress and telling me she loved it. I was terrified that she'd be hopping out of it all night, but we talked about things and she seemed to understand that she needed to stay in her bed until Daddy came to wake her up in the morning.

One of her first sleeps on the mattress.

We got a video monitor (an early "welcome baby #2" present from my brother and his family, woohoo!) to help with the surveillance of the big girl in the big bed, and she thinks it's funny when the "camera talks to me." When you ask her what the camera says, she responds accurately with "Elle Belle, it's time to go to sleeeeeppppp."

Crib ballet a few nights before we set up her mattress.
I freaked her out when my voice came over the video monitor,
and she immediately dove to the mattress.

But really, other than the first week or two - part of which she was in the crib and I caught her doing elaborate marching and dance movements from side to side - we haven't had to use the communication on the monitor much to remind her that it's time to go to sleep.

Several times, she rolled off the mattress, which was kind of amusing - I found her completely on the floor one time, and most of the other times I'd see her leaned on the mattress or on her pillows with the rest of her body partially on the floor.

Slipping out and sleeping on the floor happened a few times.

After about six weeks of being on the mattress on the floor, the bed frame arrived, and we made the next transition, complete with side rail to keep her from rolling out. She was even more excited for the bed that we'd been telling her would "be higher." She knew that the "new bed" would also turn her big girl bed white.

And it was another seamless adjustment.

The completed set-up (although we've since added a bed skirt).
Elle is in love.

Our little girl has crossed another threshold of undeniably growing up.

For all of the fears and hesitations I had, Elle has made me feel like a fool. She hasn't gotten out of bed once, and although there have been nights when she wakes up multiple times, she's made it easy on us. The reason for the wake ups have ranged from pooping to "uh, I need to go potty!" to "I can't find blankie" and my favorite - the night when she cried out to Tim at 5 a.m. because she couldn't find her stuffed sheep and followed up with a 5:30 call of "Daddy! I found the sheep!" She's done really well, though, and even on the nights when she wakes she goes back to sleep fairly easily. I watch her on our video monitor, and sometimes it takes her an hour or more to settle in to sleep, but she plays quietly in bed, and then she sleeps 10-11 hours.

It's also nice to be able to crawl in to bed with her and read, say prayers or cuddle - and MUCH easier than trying to fit her on my lap for bedtime stories and then heaving her in to a crib.

Trying out her new digs.

I figure we'll face some blips when the kids start to share a room, but I'm so proud of the way Elle has adapted and just rolls with the changes - I love how excited she has been about everything, and although she's asked a few times where the crib went, she seems to understand that Wesley is going to need it, and she's got her special big girl bed now.

I've been warned that she'll eventually figure out that she can get out of bed (maybe when night-time potty training starts?), which worries me only because all of her books and some of her toys are in her room. So far, though, I'm beyond impressed (and relieved) and figure we'll deal with those issues if the time comes.

Remodeling

Elle's nursery used to be our home office/spare room. It has the central cable/internet hook up, has an outlet connected to the light switch, has all sorts of fun and goodness that one-year-olds would like to get their hands on. So on the day before Elle's birthday, I figured I'd make an easy furniture swap to try to address some of the issues that weren't really issues before she was uber mobile.

Ha. Easy my rear end.

Every idea I had came with at least one or five negatives. When I finally thought I had the furniture placement figured out, I realized that there was no outlet near anything that needed to be plugged in. When I figured out the outlet situation, I realized the phone hookup was exposed. When I addressed that issue, I had no where to put the recliner.

But finally, after about two hours, I had lowered the crib mattress (to the lowest setting this time!), secured all of the outlet issues, made all of the furniture work for this stage of Elle's life (now featuring increased open floor area for more fun playtime!) and situated everything. Whew. Elle laughed and stared at me as I huffed, puffed and sweated my brains out.

It might not look super different from the pre-baby arrival nursery completion, but trust me, the major problems have been addressed and Baby has a new view.

Nostalgic musings

Almost exactly a year ago, I finished my last class for my Web design certificate, quit my part-time job and went on a babymoon to Atlanta. (Wow, that was only a year ago?!)

That sudden amount of free time allowed me to dive in to working on Elle's nursery. I tackled several decorative aspects and then went crazy assembling furniture.

When I put together the crib, Tim was at work. About every 10 minutes, I debated waiting to finish the crib until Tim came home, because there were parts that would really have been a lot easier as a two-person job.

"Hey guys! I'm done
with my nap now!"

Last week, I had to LOWER THE CRIB MATTRESS. Because about two days after Elle started sitting up in her crib - a position we'd find her in when we went to get her in the morning and when she woke from naps - I found her pulling up on the crib. (In fact, I apparently scared her when I found her like that - I was shocked at what I was seeing! - and she started bawling when I walked in.) Although "Lower the crib mattress" was on my to-do list for my days off, it was suddenly thrust to the top of the list and was done before she went to bed that night.

But as I did it, I remembered, again, that it would have been easier with two people (although honestly, it wasn't bad with one person compared to the initial crib assembly). And I remembered putting all of the furniture in that nursery together, when I was still pregnant. Now there's this nine-month old living in that room, a little girl I had to try to preoccupy so she wouldn't crawl around the crib while I was working. 

Those nine months of pregnancy? I thought those went fast. Then I had a baby. And seemingly the next day, I was lowering the mattress.

Completed nursery

Sooooo the nursery is all done. We attached the changing pad to the dresser the other night, made some final adjustments to the furniture and are pretty much alllll set. The baby won't be sleeping in the crib right away - we have a Pack 'N Play in our bedroom for her - and the cats don't seem to grasp that the changing pad isn't a cat bed, but for the most part, we're ready.

I took some photos and labeled some things, although really, a lot of them are self-explanatory or have been blogged about already. I was going to make an image map with links to previous blog posts about some of the things pictured, but I'm currently feeling less than motivated to do that, so you'll have to deal :) You can click on the photos for a larger view of things.





And a quick video tour:

Another wall hanging

I knew for sure that I wanted to do the 3D butterfly wall hanging, but I also knew I wanted to create some other abstract art to tie in the paper colors and butterfly theme and reinforce it.

I used a butterfly cookie cutter, tore paper using a paper-tearing tool (yes, I, too, laughed at the thought of a *tool* to tear paper), the butterfly punches and used the 3D adhesives again to vary the look of the hangings and give them some dimension.

Since the frames were smaller (I think 8x10) than the 3D butterfly hanging (11x14), I didn't want to waste any of the space with a mat.


They did not take long to make, and while I'm not 100% thrilled with them, I love the fact that they are easy to change and for now, tie in the scrapbook paper and general colors on another wall. In six months, if I find perfect brown/pink/green butterfly prints, or in a year, if I decide to redecorate Elle's room, I can just use the existing frames and trash the art.

And soon, I'll do a video tour/comprehensive "final" nursery photo post ... :)

3D Butterfly wall hanging

When we started talking about decorating the nursery, I knew that I wanted to make some of the decorations and wall hangings myself. We picked the colors - brown, pink and green - and I liked the idea of sprinkling butterflies and circles throughout the room.

Enter my favorite 3D butterfly wall hanging. I created my first one in February 2009 at one of our monthly craft gatherings. I still have it ... and easily could have used it for the nursery ... but I'm insane and wanted to use the same scrapbook paper I used for the wooden name letters.

Finished product.

I got the papers on sale, already had the butterfly punch, used a coupon to buy the double mat and saved 65% off the frame, using a coupon on an item that was already on sale. Not too shabby :)

I punch out the butterflies and mount them on a solid piece of cardstock using 3D dots/adhesive.

Sidney tries to "help."

Hanging over the crib.

Crib skirt

I have approximately one bazillion projects that in a perfect world I'd have completed by the time the baby arrives. I've already lowered the bar on "Crafts I'd like to have done by August" and eliminated some gifts and projects I thought for sure I'd have time and energy to do.

So WHY ON EARTH did I find myself adding completely new crafts to my list last week? I have no answer.

When my mom and brother were visiting, my mom pulled out my sewing machine to work on the lanai curtains. Around the same time, I decided that a crib skirt wouldn't be a terrible thing to have in the nursery, but I didn't want to buy one.

Enter my remedial 8th-grade home economics sewing skills.

The sewing machine is a great machine, but it is older, has no manual and I am not the best seamstress. I sew things by hand, but I'm not a great sewing machine problem-solver. Since my mom already had things set up from the curtains, I convinced myself that I could handle this extremely basic project - as long as nothing came unthreaded or got stuck. Worst-case scenario, I wouldn't have a crib skirt. Or I'd have to wait for my mom to come down after the baby is born to help me fix whatever problem I'd managed to create.

I did some searching online and found a few basic crib skirt tutorials. I modified the easiest one a bit and set out to find fabric. It was on sale (SCORE!), so I felt even better about my possible colossal disaster.

The fabric and the unhelpful cat who was intent on batting at pins while I worked.

I bought a basic light-pink-with-white-dots fabric for the skirt part. Then I essentially followed this tutorial, and after working on it in bits and pieces for a few nights, the crib skirt was complete! It isn't the best piece of craftsmanship to ever exist, but it was easy, it isn't a disaster and I'm especially proud that I made it, remedial home economic skills and all :)

Wooden name letters

Long before I knew we were pregnant, I was in love with the idea of putting our future child's name on their wall with wooden letters.

But then we fell in love with the name Elizabeth. And then we found out we were having a girl. (Our boy name? Waaayyyyy shorter.) And I started to think that putting nine holes in the wall for big wooden letters wasn't exactly my idea of fun. Even mounting them to a strip of wood wasn't what I was envisioning. I threw out the idea of putting "Elle" or "Beth" or "Liz" on the wall, but that meant we had to definitely pre-determine her nickname. And while Tim and I call her Elle most of the time, I liked the idea of her having her complete name to keep in her room for as long as she wants it.

So I decided to get smaller wooden letters that could be displayed on a shelf or the dresser. I got the letters with my employee discount when I was working my part-time job. I bought the scrapbook paper on sale and used a coupon to buy the foam brushes, spray paint and Modge Podge, so the total cost of the craft was low.

Allllll of the letters.

I spray painted all of the letters with a light, glossy pink color. I did two coats and got the front and back of the letters. I traced the letters on to the scrapbook paper and used an X-acto knife to cut the letters out.

Then I spread Modge Podge on to the letters with a foam brush.

I pressed the cut-out letters on to the wooden letters.

Then I spread several layers of Modge Podge
over the scrapbook paper to seal it and give it a shine.

The scrapbook papers have hints of pink, green and brown in them.

We hung up a shelf, which will hold some of the meaningful trinkets that we want to display and keep out of her reach, and put the letters up there, too.

Our dresser drama

Pictured at left is Tim wheeling our dresser (and other purchases) out of IKEA a few weeks ago. But this picture should not have been necessary. I shall explain.

Once I decided that white furniture would pop best in the nursery, I started looking at big, long dressers. I looked on various Web sites, checked out thrift stores and stalked craigslist. I found a few that I liked, but usually the dimensions/price/timing were off. Finally, I saw the perfect dresser on craigslist one day. Apparently it was so perfect that it was gone in about 15 minutes. Sigh. But I then knew what I was looking for - the Hemnes dresser from IKEA. I started searching craigslist exclusively for this dresser. I continued to look for similar dressers, but I fell in love with this dresser - the size, the price, everything seemed to be just what I was looking for ... a lot of the other dressers I had found weren't very tall, and I didn't want us to have to stoop over the dresser to change the baby's diapers. Some of the other ones I found got poor reviews or were similar prices for a lot less space. I kept coming back to the Hemnes dresser.

One Saturday I was feeling particularly frustrated about some stuff, and I was searching craigslist mindlessly. (Because of where I work and where we live, I'm able to easily get to things in two craigslist regions - Tampa/St. Petersburg and Bradenton/Sarasota.) I think it was that very weekend that I had picked up our jogging strolling (a craigslist purchase from the Bradenton/Sarasota board) and our Snap-n-Go (a craigslist steal from the Tampa/St. Petersburg board). Weeks earlier, I had trekked up to the northern area of the Tampa/St. Petersburg board's coverage to pick up cloth diapers bought off craigslist. I wasn't planning on buying anything else for a while, just to pace our baby purchases.

But as I clicked through the furniture listings, I stumbled across a posting for a white IKEA dresser in the Tampa area. For almost half the price of a new one. And this one was like new, unassembled and available for purchase and pickup. Unassembled was going to be a lot easier for us to transport, so I was especially excited about this. The posting was a few days old, but it was still there. I fired off an e-mail asking if the dresser was still available. Ten minutes later, I had a response that it was. The seller and I exchanged a few e-mails in a short period of time - I explained my love of this dresser and excitement to have it in our nursery. I asked when I could get it. I asked where it was. Before I committed to anything, I called Tim, who could hear the excitement in my voice, and we briefly discussed logistics (if he could get it, if I could borrow his car, etc.) Between me, Tim and the seller, we decided on a plan. The seller said I could get it on Sunday or Monday, and since I worked on Sunday but was off on Monday, we decided that I could meet him late on Monday afternoon to get it.

Tim and I planned to swap cars on Monday so I could have a little bit of extra room to fit the dresser, and on Sunday night, I sent another e-mail to the craigslist seller to confirm that our meeting plan was still good to go.

On Monday morning, as Tim was getting ready for work, I checked my BlackBerry and saw that I had an e-mail back from the seller.

My heart sank as I read the words: "Kristin, the chest of drawers were sold and picked up yesterday afternoon."

Yesterday afternoon. As in Sunday afternoon, a time when I told the seller I could get them, but he said Monday would work well for him, too.

Cue the pregnant woman's rage.

I've never faced this kind of sketchy dealing on craigslist. I've always been told if someone else was interested in the same item, or if the sale was pending, etc. If the seller had said someone else was interested in the chest of drawers, we would have figured out a way to pick them up on Sunday. Instead, my high hopes (and faith in the goodness of craigslist mankind) were dashed in one e-mail.

I spent the next few weeks half-heartedly searching craigslist for *the* dresser or one similar. I figured I wouldn't find the perfect dresser/price/situation that I had found previously, and I didn't. Nothing came close. So after I returned from Ohio, we planned to just buy the dresser new from IKEA. It's not *that* expensive, and it should certainly hold up well for this child and anything the future may bring, so we went for it. We had to wait until my Web design class was done so we'd have time to trek to Tampa (our closest IKEA), so early in May, we headed out and bought the dresser and a few other home/nursery things.

After we got the new carpet and returned from the babymoon, I dove in to assembling the beast. With 43 steps outlined in the manual, Tim predicted it would take me 7-9 hours to complete. A little more than an hour later, he was making dinner and I was on step 21.


After dinner, he helped me pull the dresser up off the floor and we worked together to assemble the eight drawers. I knew at that point that I was tired and didn't feel like tackling the bookshelf or crib that night, so we took our time.

I think overall it took between three and four hours to put together, and it is sturdy and lovely and exactly what I wanted. And it is quickly filling to the brim with little girl's clothes!

Our crib saga

As is the case with many things in my life, getting the crib we wanted proved to be ridiculously complex and dramatic. It didn't help that I was especially emotional.

I've had my eye on a certain crib for quite some time. It was available at Target, Babies 'R Us, Walmart ... I figured I would have no trouble getting it when the time came (and for various reasons, I was opposed to getting it *too* early). But then it went out of stock on the Target Web site. And then I decided to wait to purchase it until after our baby shower, which was fortunate because while I was home I found out that a generous family member wanted to buy the crib for us as a shower gift. About a week before I went home, I had checked the Walmart Web site (where the crib was about $50 cheaper than BRU, and Walmart is located much more conveniently than our closest BRU) and knew the crib was still available.

I returned from Ohio and received word that the GFM (generous family member) had sent a gift card to cover the cost of the crib. A few days later, the mail arrived - and included a package from the GFM. Wheeee! Instead of waiting until that night or that weekend, I decided to order right then.

I went to the Walmart Web site ... and couldn't find my crib. But then I *did* find my crib. But it was "Online only. Out of stock online."

I was less than pleased. OK, full disclosure: This *might* have prompted an all-out breakdown, complete with me calling Tim at work and him not being able to understand me through my sobs of "crib" and "stock" and "order." The fact that this all came during the last week of my class and all I had been wanting to do for weeks was put together baby furniture and work on the nursery did *not* help matters. Tim tried to calm me down (after he finally figured out what I was saying), assuring me that we could still order the crib from BRU and it would all work out.

So after the tears had stopped, I hopped on the Walmart Web site and fired off an e-mail asking if they had any way to tell how long the crib would be out of stock. I received an automated response telling me that someone would get back to me within 24 hours (this never happened, by the way).

I headed off to work and went about my day ... which included periodically checking the Web site to see if things might have changed. Maybe someone had returned one. Maybe someone had found an extra shipment somewhere. Maybe they'd been out for two weeks and were fully back in stock. No luck.

A few hours later, I realized I hadn't stalked checked the Web site in a while. I went on and rubbed my eyes. THE CRIB WAS THERE. It didn't say "Out of stock online." I quickly scrambled to pull out the GFM gift card from my wallet - the gift card I nearly put in to our safe because I figured I wouldn't hear back from the Walmart people until the next day at the earliest - before it could go out of stock again. I placed my order, trying to subdue my inner shrieks of glee, and hoped that it wasn't a fluke.

Two days later, I received an e-mail that the crib had shipped to the store and would be available in 10-14 days. (I checked the Web site again at this time, and - shocker - the crib was out of stock again.) We waited until the carpet was installed and we had returned from our babymoon, and then Tim went and picked it up.

I then feared that the crib would be damaged or missing pieces, because that would be a) just my luck and b) awful considering that there appeared to be no more cribs in stock. But alas, it all worked out - I had all of the parts I needed, and it took a little less than two hours (mostly because I put it together while Tim was at work and it was a bit tricky to hold two pieces together at times or screw things in from awkward angles).


We're going to have the baby sleep in a bassinet in our bedroom at night for the first few months, but I wanted to have this all squared away sooner than later. I put the mattress in and now we're just about good to go on nursery sleeping space :) My near disastrous crib issue? Crisis averted.

Building a baby's bookshelf

Because the bookshelf involved the least drama of all of the furniture, I will share the story of it with you all first.

I originally thought I wanted a wider, squatter 9-cube shelf. But then I thought about the room and the other pieces of furniture and decided I wanted something more vertical. I had bought the 9-cube shelf on sale and returned it ... and a few weeks later they went on sale again and we purchased the 8-cube shelf.

Construction of this puppy was rather easy - I did it in less than an hour while I dawdled and watched Grey's Anatomy :) Sidney enjoyed the cubes a lot, too. He was like a little gopher or prairie dog. The colored bins are currently full of small toys, pacifiers, bibs and hats.

Nursery progress

We have arranged and rearranged furniture the nursery furniture since last week's Days o' Construction. (I have more detailed posts on each piece of furniture coming up, too - I have quite a bit of catching up to do!)

None of the surface areas are arranged how I want them, and I haven't put the changing pad cover or crib sheet on yet, but here is a sneak peak at what we've got going on:

The dresser, which will double as a changing table. Our cloth diapers will go in some of the top drawers. The dresser was originally where the bookshelf is, but I wasn't happy with how the armchair and bookshelf would be, so we moved the dresser to the window area. Tim was just glad I was happy with the dresser being under the window and we didn't have to move it again :)

Bookshelf and (for now) blanket/towel area. The armchair will likely go to the left of the bookshelf, in the corner.

Crib, strategically placed against this wall because it is the only inner wall that isn't against our TV/home theater stuff in the living room. This way we hope to minimize the noise from outside/neighbors and our entertainment area.

I've been busy working on some crafts for the room and will blog about some of those soon, too. I spent part of yesterday catching up on household stuff and folding baby laundry - those dresser drawers are quickly filling up! I hope to finish some more of the craft projects this week.

A weekend in pictures

There will undoubtedly be much followup to this post, as there were three major components of the nursery constructed this weekend, but for now, until the nursery is more "set," I leave you with a weekend in photos, starring my lovely helpers, Sidney and Mario ...

On Saturday, I went to my monthly craft gathering. One of the girls had a baby girl in December and has generously given me TONS of hand-me-downs. On Saturday, I got two huge bags of stuff, and Sidney decided that a torn bag full of baby clothes and blankets was where he wanted to sleep for the better part of two days.

When he wasn't sleeping, Sidney was scaling the crib box. Tim picked the crib up on Friday, and I had kept the cats out of the disastrous nursery until Monday, when I needed to start constructing. Earlier, Sidney slid down the crib box face-first in to a crate of clothes.

Despite Sidney's "help," I put the dresser together on Monday.
Tim helped construct the drawers and lift pieces when I needed help. He also made dinner that night so I could continue working.

On Tuesday, we had a doctor's appointment.
Then I came home, took a short nap and built this shelf.
Once again, Sidney thought he was a crucial part
of the building process.

After running a few errands and hitting the gym on Tuesday afternoon, I came home to tackle the last project: The crib. Mario was exhausted by my efforts but also annoyed by the styrofoam pieces that kept hitting him. (Oops.) Sidney, meanwhile, cuddled up in awkward positions on top of my breast pump.

Kitty in crib jail! The crib is complete, and now that the mattress is on it, I have kept the kitties out of the nursery.

The debris from my busy weekend of building.

While I was building things, the washer and dryer were kept quite busy. Now that we have a room and furniture for the baby and we're only 10 weeks away from the due date, I felt it was time to start washing, folding and sorting. Here are just some of Elle's towels and blankets.

And here is a basket full of her clothes, waiting to be
folded, sorted and put away in the dresser.

A lot of Tuesday was spent here, at the hospital. We had our appointment in the morning, then Tim went to work while I played "Bob the Builder," then we dashed back to the hospital for our first childbirth education class. There are only seven couples in our class, which apparently is quite small, but there is another couple due with a girl on August 3.

And because of all of the time spent on my feet/a rather hot, humid week in Florida, it appears that I have some swelling in my feet. (Stellar Blackberry photo taken at work.)

And there you have it, folks - a busy but very productive weekend!