Getting Ready for a Baby

Photo by Insung Yoon on Unsplash.com

How do you prepare for a baby when all the bedrooms are occupied and your kids already have too much stuff?  First, you procrastinate by pretending that you have plenty of time. After a few months, start asking friends and family if they have any baby stuff they were planning to get rid of anyway.  Finally, a month before the due date, start to completely panic.

Spend a Thursday night touring the new birthing center of the hospital. Follow that up with a  Friday night shopping spree when you're tired and your decision making abilities are severely impaired. Fill the weekend by clearing out a room for the baby by moving your youngest son in to share a room with his messy older brother.  Don't worry about finishing it all that weekend.  Hopefully you have a couple more weeks before the baby comes.

Continue spending all your free time cleaning, rearranging, and buying the last few things you need while hoping the baby doesn’t come early.  I forgot how much stuff babies come with!
Strangely, one of the last things we bought was a simple diaper bag.  We were being indecisive because with our first three kids, we didn’t know if we were having a boy or girl so most of the baby stuff was neutral.  This time, we know it’s a girl so we wanted a diaper bag that looked like it was for a little girl.  They’re not as easy to find as we thought.

The generosity of friends and family made all this possible. Many people gave us gift cards for the above mentioned shopping spree, and/or bought something for the baby. We also received hand-me-down clothes, shoes, toys, etc.  Some friends were even generous enough to come over and help us sort through all the clothes.

Here we are less than two weeks from the due date though and we’re ready enough.  The car seat is sitting in the house and each car has a base installed for it to snap into.  The crib is set up with bedding and she has clean clothes in the dresser and closet. While it was a surprise to find out we were having a baby at our age, we are blessed to have so many generous friends and family members to help us out.

​She'll be here before we know it and I'm sure we'll find out there's something we forgot to have on hand.  Now, if we could only decide on her name.

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