Ready. Set. GO!

We are rapidly closing in on our due date around here; a fact that is altogether exciting and overwhelming. It is so hard for me to grasp that in less than a month, and as early as next week, we will have a son; a real, live, crying, pooping, dozing, needy, tiny, adoring son.

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I find it interesting that even though I have long been a blogger, I have found myself incapable of writing letters to our child to tell him about the pregnancy and what we hope for him.

It is almost as though I don’t want to jinx anything by assuming that he will actually be here.

I think of things throughout the day, but rarely remember to write them down, and now I am almost done with the pregnancy and I have barely anything to share with my son about this special time we have spent together.

Hopefully he will forgive me someday…my guess is since he is a boy; he most likely won’t even care.

Many...MANY...people have asked me if I am tired of being pregnant, and while I can say that there are moments when I really can't wait to experience things like sleeping-on-my-stomach and downing-a-couple-of-beers-at-a-BBQ or gulping-down-a-latte-in-the-morning again, I really am quite comfortable with my current state of pregnancy. Sure, I walk a bit slower, go to the bathroom multiple times an hour and my back aches in early morning, but I love my big, hard, round belly...and being able to tell that the movement you can see across the top of my belly under my ribs is my son's 8cm long foot!

I am going to miss this closeness. The fact that I can rub his back through my belly button and he'll respond by squirming for me. The lack of crying and pooping is nice too :) But I am also really, REALLY excited to get to meet the little guy; to have my husband get to hold him too; to introduce him to our families; to be a family with him.

So I wait...patiently...trying not to wish away the last of this very special time of my very first pregnancy; appreciating the anticipation and excitement in the air and knowing that in just a very short time, all of our lives are going to dramatically change.

Nursery...CHECK!

My husband's parents came to visit this weekend and helped us with some of the remaining nursery projects; so I am pleased to be able to check the nursery off our lengthy to-do list.

First they installed a screen door at the entrance to the room. We got this great idea from my sister who had one installed in her house for her nursery. Basically, the reason we did this is because we have a cat. And our cat LOVES to snuggle and I really just didn't want her in the nursery at all...which as any of you cat people may know, can be a next-to-impossible task. Unless you have a lovely screen door; with which you can still see in the room, the munchin can see out, the air flow remains the same, but the kitty is unable to enter.


For fun, we purchased these fun knobs to use as the door handles from Anthropologie:


Below is the view of the nursery from the hallway. The book case on the left was actually in my husband's father's room when he was growing up. We painted the inside to match the walls and then screwed it into the wall so no one can hurt themselves by climbing on it.

The bookshelf on the wall on the right was a gift from my husband's parents...his mom is an avid book and library supporter and saved every children's book that the hubs ever received as a kid...add to that the children's books that she gives us all for Christmas every year and you will understand me when I say that the bookshelf is currently only holding about 1/16 of the amount of books we have. So our kid will hopefully like books too and if nothing else, he may find himself at least interested in the constant switchout from old books to new books.


Above the crib, I hung three framed pictures. They are actually travel posters that I saved from these super-fun calendars that I have collected for the past four years. I knew I wanted to use them eventually, I just never knew what for. Then I realized how cool they would be in the nursery and I picked my three favorite and went from there.

The frames are attached to the wall with an ingenious device called 3M Command adhesive picture hangers. You probably have heard of the hooks they have where you can put them on the wall, and when you want to remove them, you pull the tab down and it releases them without marking up the wall. These work very similarly; there are two sticky sides, one for the frame and one for the wall. Once you line them up, they snap into place. One set of tabs is for 3lbs and we have four on each frame, so I feel very confident that they will stay in place...especially since I myself tried to pry them off and found it very difficult. Which is a good thing; again, we don't want any little fingers prying the picture frames off the wall and onto any cute little bumpkin heads.

You can see in the picture below that we have installed a cover for the radiator that was custom made. We were going to try and make one ourselves, but then found out that the custom ones have special insides to allow the heat to go through without warping the wood or blocking the heat. Figured we would leave that to the professionals! It too is bolted to the wall to cut down on anyone hurting themselves.

This picture is a little misrepresentative. Just above the stripe on the wall are white wooden letters spelling out the name we have chosen for the Kernel. But it is a secret for now, so I can't show you the whole wall.

The sailboats hanging in the window are also not in their final resting place. I wanted to hang them over the crib in lieu of a mobile, but it seems like they compete too much with the bookrack and the frames. So the next thought was to hange them in the corner near the bookshelf and dresser. I am also considering breaking them up and maybe hanging two over the crib and the rest over the changing table. What do you think?

On the opposite side of the room is a beautiful rocking chair that we received as a wedding gift from the hubs' brother and his wife. I love the rocking chair, it is stunningly gorgeous, but it isn't the most comfortable for me (I'm kind-of a tall gal) so we may have to switch it out with one of our swivel chairs from downstairs for a while.

So there you go...not too baby-ish, not too boy-centric...but still a nursery. What do you think?

PS - I KNOW you aren't supposed to have a pillow in the crib, so don't even mention it...it's just there for now.