Sweet Sleep

Mattresses are important, people! I had the best night of sleep last night that I have had in forever: dreamless and smooth, rippling on and on, with only a few hip aching moments of dim awareness as I rolled over in the night. I usually sleep pretty well during pregnancy, I'm just lucky like that, or chilled out like that or desperate like that or something. But this pregnancy has been different...our mattress had done its most valiant but there are limits. It had been with us through a decade of marriage and who  knows how many years with another family before us. I honestly think our mattress was from the 60's or 70's. This year it reached astounding heights of absurdity. A and I had begun to joke about going sleep in the soup bowl every night but truthfully it was more like sleeping in a real life game of Chutes and Ladders. There springs poking up, gooshy holes, hard ridges, and broken plastic handles sticking out in gouge-ready positions.

Thankfully, oh so thankfully....I report to you that we are now the proud owners of a new to us, 2 year old mattress that feels like heaven. We lay in bed laughing this morning about the strangeness of sleeping on such a nice bed in our own room, we felt like we were at a hotel! So silly!

Before we carted our old lump-fest of a previous bed to the dump I whipped out a pair of scissors and zipped off the beautiful fabric that covered the box springs. I've been eying it for years and knew even when we first got it that I would someday strip that cloth off for another use. The bonus of ancient mattress sets is the psychedelic, vintage fabric that they come wrapped in. What do you think? Curtains in the bathroom or the kitchen or something more creative?

Nesting Begins!

Yes, today the nesting began in earnest.

I have been searching madly in the "free" section of Craigslist...(do check out the fabulous iPhone app if you are equipped)...for a changing table or a low dresser that could double as such. No dice. I've been looking for a couple of weeks and A has been threatening to take his grandmother's beautiful heirloom writing desk into the kids room for changing diapers on if I didn't get something in two weeks time. Honestly, I think he was even a little generous and turned a blind eye for perhaps longer than the supposed "limit."

We got word that we were supposed to have a Nor'easter coming through tonight and so I thought I'd make a mad dash for curb browsing and see if I could find something. There had been a post on Craigslist recently about a family who was moving and had dumped a good quantity of stuff on the curb and so I thought I'd take a gander and see if there was anything left before the rain got at it.

There wasn't much left. I picked through the bagged goods and rescued two china saucers, a golden, three armed plant stand. There was a low dresser that was the right height but it was a bit long (I didn't want anything imposing) and it was real wood which meant that it was heavy. Heh. No way I was gonna be able to lug it into the car, I could barely lift one corner. I overlooked repeatedly and then finally noticed the flimsy, seen-better-days, made out of fake materials computer desk on the other side of the driveway and then thought..."Hey!" and somehow I could see potential. I could barely lift it and it only sorta fell apart upon lifting and it totally fit in the trunk of The Mommy Van. Score.

I got it home and Ru (believe it or not!) helped me carry it out of the car, up the stairs into the house and then up the stairs to the boys room to boot. And, no, you can't have him, he's my four year old. I plan to feed him cookies tomorrow to make sure he stays.

So, we hauled it up, I hammered and glued and then sawed and hammered some more and lo and behold...I created our own little changing table/ psuedo dresser clothing shelf unit. Presto! Nothing but garbage was used in its creation.

Some of my cuts were a little rough (I was working with a pruning saw, points for resourcefulness) and there are some raw edges that aren't sanded or painted yet, but...like everything else in the house I am dreaming it in another color anyhow. I'm thinking, cherry red, in a high gloss?

I also arranged the living room into what I think may be our working model at the moment  and put the first brush strokes on the walls.

I realize the color looks a little glaring and a bit Barbie at the moment but its only the first coat and it was a night-shot. That's all I'm painting right there...just that square over the mantle...I think...I'm considering painting in the rectangle in the middle of the mantle too. Not sure on that. After a few more coats it will be a sleek and modern raspberry and will set off the big white candle-holders I bought the other day at a fabulous tag sale!

Am excited about the home day I have coming tomorrow....more arranging and nesting and maybe even painting to come!

Not Thinking and Other Clever Plans

Have been doing a good job, up until now with being quite perfectly patient with this baby. Promised myself I wouldn't get antsy and ridiculously self-indulgent and whiney like I did with Dee but then....I'm slipping just a touch. I still don't feel like I did with him and I am hopeful that I'll return to my thus-far normal state of placid floating onwards. But, really...tonight, I'm teetering on the edge of feeling a little disappointed and slightly sorry for myself.

The last couple of days I have really felt like things were starting to pick up and like labor was actually beginning. Just the very tippy toes beginning, mind you...but, beginning nonetheless. I was feeling lower back achey and kind of pre-menstrual crampy and having slightly painful contractions pretty frequently around the clock (as recently as this morning when I woke up) but yes, now things have calmed right down and the ripples are pretty well gone from the pond. I am big and awkward and just feeling like eating a lot of pizza, not really like I'm about to have a baby. Oh well. At least I don't hurt anymore. So, tomorrow I have another midwife appointment and see the chiropractor for another adjustment and I really do need to think about what I want to do for Mother's Day since I'm not going to be in labor after all. Hmm....nothing very inspired coming to me.

For now, the plan is, Think of Other Things. Lots.

That's about it. Wish I had some other brilliant solution but, that's pretty much all I've got at this point. Honestly, if Baby came right now, he or she would technically be early and as exciting as it would be to hold the new little person in my arms, I really, really want my baby fully-baked and at least in my mind, I'd rather go over than delivery early. That means I sit tight, I drink water, I make lists of productive things to do and I try not to stay awake too late at night stuttering through lists of all the things in the house that need organizing and cleaning. Heh.

So, what else is happening around here? Well, today I spent some good time in the garden, I clipped the black raspberry vines back a bit and tied the new shoots to the fence, I spread grass clipping mulch, I planted two clematis vines and my biggest project: I wove this year's twig arbor over our wicker bench. The grape vines are coming back (both made it through the winter!) which makes me very happy and the clematis will join them, clamoring over the little woven hood. I like this year's rendition quite well and so proud of myself for finishing it before the baby comes. It was a slightly superfluous project that was really bugging me. Just the sort of thing I lie in the dark thinking about at 3AM.

The lettuce in the garden is officially big enough for harvest (now if only I hadn't bought that industrial sized box of washed California salad greens). Blast. Maybe we'll have to eat what we have and snip these leaves when they're palm sized for covering burgers fresh off the grill. Doesn't that sound delicious?

Ru is so cute. Love the rabid story sponge he's become. He's been obsessed lately with Winne-the-Pooh. We were just home today with lots of good flex time so we hauled the big book of Pooh stories around the house and read in the garden, and on his bed and on the couch while I folded laundry and a few million other places. I think I read him five of the stories just today. He's determined to finish the book as soon as possible and cries every time we have to take a break and then retires to a corner with the treasured tome to re-work over E.H. Shepherd's brilliant illustrations and mouth his favorite quotes silently to himself. My family was rabid about Pooh...Milne is still the secret trade language my sisters and I quote back and forth to each other so, it is indescribably good to see my own small boy practically bathing in the same stories at the tender age of four.

And then just a few floral moments from the garden this morning. I tell you people, look at those rose buds! I swear to you, every rose bush I own is budding out fit to be tied at the moment. I'm half worried some ridiculous plague will strike and wipe them all to the ground but IF they all manage to bloom we'll be simply rolling in roses...it will a June to remember. I cannot wait to see my old homestead moss roses bloom that I dug up two years ago with my sister Foxy. They haven't bloomed for me yet but, they're all covered with little  teardrop buds and I just can't wait to dip my nose into the blooms. There is nothing in this world like ancient, nameless roses.