Thirteen Preps for P

It's been a busy day today. We spent a lot of time running errands and completing things we need to get done before school starts and P joins us. In that spirit, I'm listing off thirteen things we've already done to prep for her arrival.

1. Repainted. We did two rooms (one of which will be hers) and the hallway. See a previous post for more details.

2. Installed window treatment in nursery. Our crib set came with a valence so we bought a heavy duty rolling shade to block our the light. It might not be the most stylish choice, but the sun rises on that sight of the house and we wanted to keep the room as dark as possible.

3. Cleaned out the closet in the nursery. This closet was previously home to the Suellen M. Sharp Memorial Empty Box Collection. Seriously, we must have had 30-40 boxes just hanging around. There was a short mourning period, but I think Suellen will live with out them. I should also confess that we still have a tiny bit more to do on this one, but I'm counting it done for now.

4. Installed an additional shelf in the laundry room to hold all the stuff we wanted to keep from the nursery closet. This consists mostly of all the new games we've acquired since we started hanging out with Amy and Ben so much.

5. Purchased a new digital camera and rewired the computer desk so that we could actually removed the pictures from it and print them off. This was actually much harder than it may sound since the computer desk is very small and for whatever reason all of our electronics have cords at least 6 feet long.

6. Enrolled in class taught by Crazy Jane. Again, see below.

7. Completed a full scale cleaning - down to toothbrush grout scrubbing - of each bathroom. I'm not sure what this had to do with the baby exactly, but we were on a nesting roll so we just kept it going.

8. Begun collecting diapers. Every time there's a coupon, we buy a pack. It's not like they're going to go bad.

9. Went to a lawyer and set up wills, co-parenting agreements, powers of attorney (both for money and to make medical decisions), a domestic partnership agreement and second-parent adoption papers. Basically we had to spend a great deal of time and money to do what getting married does for your automatically. And, there's still no guarantee that whoever is in power will recognize our wishes.

10. Started filing out P's baby book. Suellen's mom got us one that's a 3-ring binder style in stead of a bound book. It came with an extra "About My Mommy" page so that we could customize it for us. (Note to all you stalkers out there - the book is pink, and I am tolerating it.)

11. Cleaned out a drawer for bibs. This really wasn't that momentus since it actually used to be full of towels but they were all dirty. What will be more momentus is finding cabinet space for bottles and food.

12. Designated specific areas in each room for baby things. I know that we will eventually succumb to baby toy sprawl, It's inevitable. But we have a small house with hardly any storage (no basement, no real attic), and I'm hoping that if we start with a plan, we'll have a better chance of sticking to it.

13. Picked out and purchased an outfit for P to wear on her homecoming day. This was probably the cutest thing we've done. We've been blessed by so many gifts that we haven't really bought anything for her on our own yet (aside from some furniture), so it was nice to pick out some special clothes together.

I think that's it. I was originally going to list the 13 things we had left to do, but that became too negative. As crazy Jane told us yesterday: you need to think of excitement, power and progress (as opposed to fear, tension and pain). And who wouldn't list to a dirty old woman?