two months (ish) to go

One side of my mind knows that "two months" is a LOOONG time, but the other side of my brain has a list of all of these things that need to be accomplished in two months time, and that list makes the time seem QUITE short. Especially when counting weekends! I've made some moves toward getting Kate's big girl room ready, and so the great rubix cube resorting of furniture in the Bailey home is about to begin. Two weekends ago, we celebrated Jen's birthday by going on a girl's shopping trip! It was so fun to shop and not have to worry about diapers, potties, child containment, manuevering strollers, or even particular meal times. I made a fantastic find at Pottery Barn Kids on Kate's bedding. Her new quilt & old one actually look REALLY similar. This week we picked up a bed from a church family who are moving away . . for FREE! Now that's a steal! The bed will be a great transitional bed for Kate because it's still quite low to the ground, like a bunk bed, but holds a twin size mattress. I went bed shopping with Kate & we picked out her new mattress, too. She's so excited to have her bed "like Lyyyydia!" Of course, it's still downstairs in the storage room, but she still likes to go see it. Next step: paint selection & execution. I do NOT enjoy picking paint colors. I am too visual of a person & would prefer to see the whole room painted before I made my choice. Thankfully, I've only made one really BAD paint choice in my short career -- but it was enough to scare me silly! (For those who have followed the blog for awhile -- the "pool" room). The other sad thing is that I actually love the current color of the room, but it's just not the right shade of green. Josh is picking up some paint samples from Benjamin Moore today, and hopefully we can make our selection & get the paint actually made at our neighborhood Home Depot for painting this weekend. My goal is to get Kate moved into her new room early April. Our current plan is to move the desk currently in the office to our guest room & make that a multi-purpose room. We still have an extra room downstairs that needs some finishing work to make it a usable room, but we're still in wait & see mode about what exactly we should do with it. It would make a great playroom, but I've heard mixed results from people about how utilized playrooms really are. The only thing I've bought new for baby Bailey is a glider for the nursery & two SwaddleMe's. I'm so excited about how much "cheaper" baby #2 can be, especially with the help of a great s-i-l who has had 2 summer babies.

New Aquisition for Baby Bailey -- A chair! This is sooo overdue. We never had a chair in Kate's room & I definitely needed one when we breastfed. Even now, it's great to have a place to sit & cuddle & read before bed (or whenever). My star of a hubbie picked it up at a local kid's resale shop. Woohoo! Laid over the back of the chair is the crib sized quilt. She doesn't use it sleep under very often, but I have put it in her crib as a cozy layer to sleep on top of.

To go into Kate's big girl room -- her table!

New bedding. I think I got the quilt for a few dollars cheaper than the sheet set. (both under $40) The flowers are on the pillow sham. The pink is the reverse side of the quilt. If you look back at the crib quilt, you'll see what I mean about being quite similar. :-)

Kate's headboard (and footboard right next to it).

A picture that captures the chaos which is our office usually. This is Kate's future bedroom & I thought I'd capture a before. We'll probably keep the bookshelf/storage on the left, and move both the desk & bookshelf. I've been assaulting craigslist every day to find a dresser for her.

An update on Kate at 2 years 2 months. She made a small step into potty training, but got a horrible stomach flu right after that and sort of retrogressed after that. Because of my pretty regular visits to the doctor & two very recent ones to her pediatrician, she has a pretty great attitude about making visits to the doctor, and even likes to play "doctor" at home. Right now, she has gotten ready to go to Dr. Pohl's office. This includes getting socks and shoes on, and a purse. Earlier, she had to have her stethoscope, thermometer, doctor's pager, and her baby in order to go to the doctor's. We "examined" the baby by taking her temp & then looking at her buns (this from her doc's visit today -- I thought she might have a UTI). She also used her stethoscope to listen to the baby in the baby's tummy. Talk about a bit confused! She listens & says "fump, fump."

She is also REALLY into clothes right now. She is very particular about what she wants to wear. Not two shirts, not a sweatshirt, not jeans, but cozy pants, the green shirt, not the pink shirt, etc. Not the khaki crocs, the pink crocs. Favorite shoes right now are her Keen sandals. Convincing her that the weather is such that she NEEDS to wear two shirts or needs to wear shoes without holes or that green shirt & orange pants don't match is like wrestling a hippopotamus. The good thing about this new phase is that she's also become interested in dressing herself. At this point, she is learning to put on some more complicated shoes & is getting comfortable getting her pants on & off. The hardest part is pulling those pants over the buns when your arms are a little bit too short!

Picture taken at Auntie Jen's birthday dinner at our house. She had been sampling the "creams." Look at her looooooooong hair, another thing she has some real fixations about. She doesn't want a pony tail or clips or bows. She tells me, "I'll just do like this, mom," as she sweeps her bangs back with her hand. Oh really! I feel like I'm dealing with a teenager. I remember having the exact same conversation with my dad about my horrible trying to be trendy bangs that always fell over my eyes. I hear myself echoing dad's words: But I want to see your beautiful eyes.