Baby Boy's Side of the Room

Tiny quilts and tiny lamps and a tiny bed

As I nestle into today’s naptime with Annie, the baby monitor beside us, my belly tight with a little boy I’m in desperate need of meeting soon, I’m exhausted from the constant cleaning and preparing I’ve been doing every day. These are the oddest days of pregnancy…any moment now my water could break, and won’t I be glad the entire house is vacuumed and the laundry folded and the dishwasher ready to run? Or we could be here again tomorrow, just waiting, and straightening, and dusting, and washing, and growing antsy, and doing it all over again.

I do know this, though: I have less than a week left of my bedroom being my own. Which is a very difficult thing to swallow, given I have cherished the candlelit hour or so after my shower, when Price and Annie are still out in the library and I am reading or watching trash television before falling asleep. But then I remind myself of the first night I laid Kit down in her nursery crib, rolling the bassinet away from the side of our bed, how hard I cried. And how quickly that night came, really. How quickly that night will come again, just this time with two little babies in the room next door.

Price and I went to our last doctor’s appointment yesterday morning, stopping on our way out of town at an estate sale down the street, where I walked away with two old, old quilts and a pair of matching maple twin beds. Twin beds that will one day replace the crib in our wallpapered nursery, with folded Irish chain quilts at the feet and little lamps beside them so my babies can read books at night. I know that night, the first side by side, will come quickly, too.

But as for now, as my baby boy is still cuddled up inside me, I’m relieved all the tiny little things I’ve ordered for his side of our room has come in. If you read last week’s post, you’ll know how in disarray my home feels after a weekend of rearranging…but his “room”…it feels precious and perfect and ready.

When Kit was born, we used one of the common baby registry bassinets, one that swiveled onto the bed for easy access, mesh siding, made of plastic. I felt like it was lopsided and entirely too bulky, and she would have outgrown it sooner than I would have outgrown wanting her beside me. So I pulled out my wallet and invested in the Babybay cosleeper bassinet, a purchase I never one time regretted, especially now, with another baby on the way. It made me feel closer to my baby and then, of course, like my room was pretty again, and not a constant reminder of newly postpartum nighttimes. I use king-sized pillowcases, picking out a pretty sage striped for his bed, as sheets, and love to drape blankets on the end. This quilt was a one-of-a-kind from Etsy, made from starry and gingham Liberty fabric (linking some others I loved here, here, and especially here). The gorgeous knitted baby blanket on top is a gift from my grandmother.

The only dilemma I ran into when thinking through how our routines would go with this baby was the fact we still use Kit’s beautiful rocker multiple times a day…to read in, to say good morning in, to settle her in for a nap and for bedtime. We are nowhere near prepared to not have a rocker in the nursery, especially given he will eventually go in there, too. So we made use of an old family heirloom my grandpa had offered up to me now three years ago, before any babies even. It belonged to his aunt and uncle, a beautiful Ethan Allen glider that fits perfectly to the side of the dresser we bought for $100 on the side of the road a few months ago. I ordered custom linen cushions off of Etsy, and then repurposed an old Chappy Wrap blanket and Pepper Home pillow that matches one in Kit’s crib, both in the most gorgeous, and surprisingly easy to clean, pear velvet fabric.

On the dresser, I ordered a seagrass changing basket and found one of my favorite lamps I’ve ever owned (my first a blue and white floral I bought for our very first home together) on the bottom shelf at Homegoods, a tiny cream Ralph Lauren that holds a 7.5 watt lightbulb so I can leave it on all night in the beginning, when the nighttime makes me feel anxious and I need to watch him sleep instead of sleep myself.

It’s different preparing for the second baby…this little temporary nursery as evidence. I didn’t need as much, I didn’t worry as much, but still, I wanted a tiny home for him to be welcomed to. Drawers lined with plaid wallpaper, that smell of Noodle & Boo laundry detergent. Clean sheets, soft blankets, new pajamas and some passed down from his sister, who was just his age actually.

All of his tiny little things, brushes and creams, swaddles, hats, onesies and little sweaters, Kit’s houseshoes that were once mine and my brother’s, gauzy blankets and the tiniest, tiniest diapers with Pooh Bear on the back, live in this dresser in our bedroom. His whole little world, on my side of the bed somehow. Just waiting to be used.