Everyone has their own list of the pros and cons of having two children close together. Our Remy will be eighteen months old when his brother Clive is born. Unless I have to be induced early like I was before–then they’ll be seventeen months apart. This, is of course, assuming I go full-term. Anyway.
After a near-death experience in the delivery room, you’d think I wouldn’t be too eager to start the process again so soon, but I was. My doctor told me to wait six months before getting pregnant again. I waited nine. I think I deserve something for that. Like an extra ultrasound, or something.
Maybe my OB isn’t willing to hand out any prizes, but I thank my lucky stars that I have a husband who is willing to indulge the crazy pregnant lady with one million Pinterest nursery ideas up her sleeves.
When we first decided that our “two under two” would be sharing a room, my mind immediately went to furniture. It seemed a shame to buy a second crib when Remy wouldn’t be in it too long after Clive was born. We have a twin bed already, so after googling mommy forums for “transitioning a toddler to a twin bed” and finding that lots of people actually do that, we decided that we could just move Remy to the twin bed when he was too big for the crib.
I think this plan was in place for about two or three weeks before it started keeping me up at night.
So I started scouring craigslist for cribs. I wished I could find one like we already had, because I really wanted the furniture to match, but Remy’s crib is a big, beautiful thing that sadly is no longer produced and sold. It wasn’t ever very popular, either, seeing as I couldn’t seem to find one secondhand anywhere in the south. (Either that or it is enormously too popular and no one is willing to let theirs go.) I did think my problems were solved when I found a listing for two Jenny Lind cribs, mattresses included, for $150, but they were actually sold the day before I emailed the seller. (Which, I’ll admit, I seriously doubted after the listing didn’t come down for another two weeks, although I wasn’t nearly enough of a crazy pregnant lady to email the seller again and double check. Nope, not me.)
After I got over my depression from missing the matching vintage cribs, we discussed the situation again and decided that we would buy a toddler bed for Remy, then just keep the new baby with us until Remy was ready to make the transition. I found a great bed and mattress on craigslist that almost matched our existing crib, and that was that. Until we set it up in the new nursery we’re preparing for the boys, and I saw how much Remy really, really liked climbing in and out of the bed. And trying to stand up and jump on it. And when I wouldn’t let him stand up, how much he really, really liked holding onto the side and bouncing on his knees. Oh, he liked to lie down on it, too. Sometimes. Thank goodness.
And so my stress level slowly started to creep up, no matter how much I reminded myself that he’d be practically two before we had to put him in the bed, and that that was several months from now, and that it wouldn’t be like trying to make a fourteen-month-old sit down and stop bouncing (I hoped), and we could always put Clive in the pack-n-play in our master closet if he was as LOUD of a sleeper as Remy was (oh my good gravy was he ever loud) and hopefully Remy would be ready to move to the toddler bed before Clive was, you know, three years old. Because I’m pretty sure that pack-n-plays have a weight limit.
So this was my state of mind when we were out yard sale-ing this past weekend, about the time we drove through a subdivision having a community-wide sale and suddenly OMG THERE IS A JENNY LIND CRIB THERE AT THAT HOUSE I HAVE TO GO LOOK AT IT.
“Why do we need a crib?” Jeremy asks.
“Because the toddler bed stresses me out.” Crazy pregnant lady.
I got it for $15. I don’t care if it doesn’t match Remy’s crib.
So the crib desperately needed a coat of paint, and after looking through what we already had (and asking facebookers for their input) I decided to paint it blue. It’s actually the same blue that was in the room before we remodeled it, which is kind of ironic, I guess.
We took all the hardware off and I started brushing the crib, which took forever because those little pretty Jenny Lind spindles are so delicate and impossible to paint without it dripping all over the place. So you’re constantly having to watch for drips and correct them before they dry that way. And I mean constantly. The other option was to paint with such a dry brush that you’d have to do twenty coats instead of two. I switched between these two methods every ten minutes or so, depending on how frustrated I felt.
I think I had managed one coat on one side of the head and footboard after a couple of hours of work, when I mentioned to Jeremy that I really wished I was spray painting.
“Yeah, or using a spray gun.” He replied.
That’s when we both remembered that we actually have a spray gun.
If you only glean one thing from this blog, ever, let it be this: only use a spray gun for painting furniture. Ever. We got ours from Harbor Freight for $80.
Things got so easy that I decided to tackle our rocking chair.
It’s actually the chair that Mom rocked me in. I decided to paint it blue because it sits on the other side of the room from Clive’s crib, and would balance out the un-matchy-ness of the vintage blue crib.
I hauled it outside and started spraying before I realized, suddenly and with a paralyzing fear, that I hadn’t asked permission to paint it. But it was already too late.
Sorry, Mom. I don’t suppose I can blame Clive for this, can I? No? How about Remy?
It took a couple of hours to finished both pieces, the chair and the crib, mostly because it started raining on me twice while I was working. Nothing can deter the crazy pregnant lady with the paint sprayer, though, and both were finished today and hauled back upstairs to their new home.
Two more things off my list!
Remaining:
- paint crib
- paint rocking chair
- paint ikea baskets
- sew curtains
- make clive’s name in branches
- sew cushions for rocking chair (I used an extra cushion from our patio set)
- make mobile for changing table
- move ephraim’s crib
- move closet (ugh)
Allis says
@GranMaggie – Oh, good! I was genuinely worried, there. I’ll have to tell the kids they’re off the hook.
GranMaggie says
I forgive you for not asking before you painted it. That old yardsale rocking chair has certainly been worth its $10 price tag more times than I can count! Glad it is getting a new life at your house.