Nesting. Its not your mother's Russian doll.

Apparently there is a process that every soon-to-be parent goes through.  It must be instinctual.  Or primal.  But it just must be.  Nesting.  When the expecting (or in our case, waiting) parents begin to turn a house with four (or more) walls into a home. This has taken many forms over the course of the history of society. I envision cavemen and women stacking bones in the corner of their cave to make what we, today, would call a pack-and-play.  In the Dark Ages, peasants used pelts to decorate a small area of their thatched huts into a warm and cozy nursery.  The Renaissance lovers built miniature castles for their babes.  In more modern times, families begin to decorate rooms of their houses in cutesy-footsey themes like tinkerbell, or puppies playing football, or my little pony (I guess).  We opted for the ever popular Safari.  Lions and tigers and bears...oh my! 


Let me let all of you non-parent people in on a little secret.  Cribs will bring into question your ability to act like an adult.  I am not sure why they insist on making them so difficult to build.  A lot of nuts and bolts in obscure and hard to reach places. I realize it is all for the safety of my baby - and for that, I am thankful.  However, I am not thankful for the scraped knees and rug burns on my elbows that I endured making a box of slats and wood pieces into a beautiful crib.  I guess nesting involves a lot of cussing and sweating.  


As we prepare for this ambitious journey into parenthood, we have decided to take on the great, stone behemoth that is Babies 'R Us (picture the R flipped backwards).  Did you know there are about 15,000 different kinds of bottles and nipples for babies?  **Sidenote: apparently when I was just a little newborn, I had colic for about 6 months (my dad says 6 months and 4 days) and made my parents' lives completely miserable and unsleepable.  As a result, I have a sinking suspicion that I have some pretty nasty karma coming my way.** So, as we were meandering through the aisles of bottles, I learned that there is new technology in the baby bottle market that allows for anti-colic features to your regular, run-of-the-mill bottle.  I may have found the kryptonite of the aforementioned karma.  Needless to say, I believe there may be some of those bottles on a baby registry near you.  


Back to the nesting.  We spent all weekend finding strollers and swings and harnesses and onesies.  We turned our guest bedroom into a jungle of fun for our baby.  Complete with a wallpaper border and fancy shmancy appliques of monkeys and other safari animals.  I think the baby will be happy.  But more importantly, we are happy.  We have successfully made a special home for our little one.  Of course, he or she will spend the first several months of his or her life in our room in a special crib next to us (not in our bed, of course).  We have so much more to do. But it feels good to have a room that is just for our baby.  


We continue to be so incredibly excited about this baby!  We want to thank you all for your support in this process! 


Travis