Now, despite the several years it has taken us to get remotely close to parenthood, I've never felt as under-prepared for anything as I do for bringing home a baby. We have to keep it alive and raise it. Me and the hubs had a nice, deep conversation about the latter part of that last night.
ANYWAYS, since I have absolutely zero idea how to prepare mentally, emotionally, or otherwise beyond physically for this, we've done a few things to be as ready as we can think to be before baby makes his arrival.
We have:
- gotten a 2nd car. It looks like this. We were worried about only having one car, and that car being gone most days since Jeff doesn't work close enough for me to drop him off and pick him up every day. He wanted (needed, really, since he's got some hobbies that tear up the Pathfinder but that's another story for another day) a truck but settled on a sedan and has found that he really enjoys a) the gas mileage and b) the actual ride itself. So, score.
- Everything washed, ready, set up, and installed. The crib was done weeks ago. The carseat base? That's been in my car for a few weeks too. Clothes are washed and sorted, room is as ready as it will probably be - though there are a few cosmetic touches I've wanted to add that we haven't gotten around to yet. I didn't want to spend a lot of money decorating a room that he would never remember or appreciate, so almost everything in there has been either gifted or DIY'd.
The rocking chair was gifted by my sister, the bunny and white blanket were knitted by my mom, the giraffe and elephant pictures were knockoffs of really cute prints I found on Etsy at $9.00/each (which were not being sold at the moment) - so I copied them as best I could and bought the frames for $3.50 each, the quilt I sewed ($35) and don't look at the seams, please, and the mobile is also a knockoff of an Etsy item that sells for $80 that my mom and I made for $23. Jeff's going to make a bookshelf to hang over the lamp on the left side of the room and that will be about it. I would have loved to have a Moroccan pouf and a rug, but again - it's not something he'll remember and I would much rather have the $$ to spoil him with when he gets here.
- have 9 days of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners in the freezer. Here's a few of the recipes we used for dinners:
A few others are recipes I've tweaked to our family's taste over the years - crockpot chicken philly sandwiches, crockpot chicken fajitas (also good over salad), and baked chicken flautas. One thing that was (halfheartedly) on my mind as I prepped these was that I wanted to be able to start dropping weight, so I tried to make the meals something that Jeff could eat traditionally, and that I could tweak a little so it wasn't so carb heavy for me.
For breakfasts, I made a box of buttermilk pancakes and froze them, made several fruit/veggie smoothie packs, and also these muffins. There's nothing healthy about these muffins, but they are one of my FAVORITE things to eat. Kind of a "welcome home, sorry your lady bits are tore up" gift to myself.
This week will be 36 weeks, so he can come relatively soon after that and if I'm being honest, come 37 weeks I'll be doing everything I can to help him come a little early.
We are SO excited to meet this baby boy of ours. He's our biggest dream come true.
