In Preparation

Last year at this time, our house was full to bursting.

My in-laws lived with us, we still had a roomer, and we had 4 kids.  That meant that the boys and Jimmy and I were in one room upstairs, and the girls shared the other room upstairs and my in-laws had the large room downstairs and our roomer had the tiny room downstairs.

Then, my in-laws moved out in November, so rather than move any of the kids downstairs to be alone at night with only our roomer down there, we decided to move all of the dressers downstairs to have all the clothes on one level so that it would be much easier to fold and put away and contain the laundry mess, as laundry always seems to make a mess.

Then, in about March, our roomer moved out.  So, we decided to move the girls downstairs into the big bedroom, and put all the dressers in the smaller room that our roomer vacated.

But, right when we were in the process of doing that and everything was a mess, I ended up on bedrest, so we ended up just putting an airmattress in the big room downstairs in the middle of all the mess since I couldn't go up stairs anymore and we didn't have any beds downstairs.

We had already gotten rid of Elizabeth's mattress, though, so she ended up sleeping on the floor through it all.  Poor kid.  But, as Calvin's dad, of Calvin and Hobbes, would say, it builds character to sleep on the floor.

Now that I am back in business, so to speak, we have started to set the house up in anticipation for Hazel's arrival home.  It seems pretty definite that she will come home with some type of monitor or something that will go beep pretty loudly in he night, so Jimmy and I have revamped the room plans yet again.

This is what we have come up with:

Elizabeth is in the tiny room downstairs by herself with Baby B's port-a-crib in it for his nap times during the day.  That means that she has her own space for the most part and the other kids have no reason to go into her room and 'mess with her stuff'.

Jo will is in the big room downstairs that is across the hall from Elizabeth by herself, but she has all the dressers and laundry in her room with the exception of Elizabeth's and most of mine.  (Elizabeth has her own in her room, and I am have most of mine in my room.) Jo also has the library bookshelf in her room as well as the craft supply drawers and a table where she and Gabriel can work on projects with the door closed so that the babies can't 'get into their stuff' while they are working.

Gabriel and Jesse are sharing the room upstairs where the girls used to be.  We have moved their bed/cribs in there but the walls are still a striking purple color.  We may actually get around to painting sometime, but that's not top on the list right now.  They can deal with grape colored walls for a while.   It is interesting how much bigger the room looks now that Jo and Elizabeth's stuff is out of it and there is just the boys' 2 beds in there.

The final touches on this move took place on Monday since Jimmy took off work that day.  Even though Jo and Elizabeth's rooms still have superfluous stuff in them, at least all the beds are in the rooms where they are supposed to be.

That meant that Monday night was Gabriel and Jesse's first night alone in their own room apart from Jimmy and me.  It took Jesse a while to finally fall asleep, but when he did he slept fine all night, and Gabriel went to sleep fine.

It is when he woke up where there was a slight issue.

Our sweet little 3 year old boy woke up in the morning crying.  When we asked him what was wrong, he said that he had a bad dream and it was scary and he didn't like it.  When we asked about it, this is what he said:

"I dreamed that someone took Baby Hazel and changed her bed from her little one to a big one.  And then they put it up high and I couldn't see her and she was afraid and that made me sad so I was crying."

So you see, sweet baby Hazel Grace, while you sleep and rest and breathe and grow over there in your safe little isolette, we are thinking about you here.  We are preparing a place for you here in our home even as you have made a home deep in our hearts.

And know this, sweet Hazel Grace, your big brother Gabriel is looking out for you.  He cares about you and worries for you, even in his sleep.

You are loved, sweet baby, you are loved!