Getting Ready for Little Brother

Nesting (as in the frenzied activity of a woman nearing the birth of a child to get her "nest" just right) is not something entirely influenced by hormones. How do I know this? Ever since we received our referral, I have hardly stopped working for a moment. I have been cleaning out cabinets and steaming my carpets like my life depended on it. I have been pregnant before, I know what it's like, and I am definitely nesting. Think of me as about seven months pregnant now, only without all the hormones.

The reality has sunk in that we have a baby coming to join our family in just a couple of months. I have a lot to do to get ready! Cleaning and organizing gives me an outlet for my energy. I want so badly to have him in my arms now, to be rocking him and loving him. That isn’t a possibility right now, so I am throwing myself into what I CAN do. I am getting our household as ready as possible for him to join us so that I can devote all of my attention to him (and Madeline, of course) when he does get home.

Here is a peek at my freezer.

I have been working very hard to jam it full of meals so that I won’t have to cook for a while after Little Brother comes home. I am up to 25 now, and my goal is to have 30. If I had a deep freezer I would probably fill it up too. :)

We have been diligently working to get his bedroom ready. We had planned to just keep it simple. We weren’t going to paint or anything (the room used to be a guest room). But one thing has led to another and we have now not only painted, but also replaced the windows, replaced the door, and put new trim around everything. (I am so thankful for my super-duper handyman husband!) We have a crib that we borrowed from a friend and a rocking chair, and that’s really all we need for the time being. I am enjoying how spacious the room feels.

Here I am cleaning drywall dust off of the bookshelves. Doesn’t the blue look pretty!

Madeline LOVES her dad’s cordless drill. She knows how to turn it on herself and she walks around with it, pulling the trigger.

In the meantime, I have been reorganizing pretty much every room of the house. Our house is on the smaller side and we have very little storage. (No garage, no bonus room, very small usable attic…) Before we had kids this wasn’t too much of a problem because we had a closet in each of our three bedrooms that we could use to store anything that we wanted. Now with a child in each of our bedrooms, there is NO extra space! Over the years I have gradually purged so many things that I used to treasure. They just don’t seem to matter much anymore. It actually feels good to relieve myself of the burden of all the stuff.

I have also gotten more and more efficient at organizing. I’ve realized that it makes a lot more sense to have our changing table in our spacious bathroom now that I will have two in diapers. As a bonus it frees up space in Madeline’s tiny bedroom. I have puzzles and craft supplies tucked in kitchen drawers that I emptied in the latest purge. And the den cabinets are stuffed with Mr. Potato Head and blocks instead of stacks of wedding presents that I have never used. I’ve moved an extra table into our bedroom and draped a long cloth over it so that I can store my sewing machine and supplies underneath it. And now I have a sewing station in our bedroom instead of filling up a closet with that stuff.

With every cabinet that I have cleaned out, I have felt a little more ready. But I think my greatest victory so far has been cleaning my carpets last weekend. They were badly in need of it, and I didn’t realize just how much it had been bothering me until I felt the relief of them being clean once again. I rented one of those big machines from Home Depot on Saturday and worked all day at moving furniture, dusting, and going over and over the carpets until they were completely clean. I feel like a new woman!

Besides just all of my cleaning, cooking, and organizing, I have sent a couple of care packages to Little Brother. He is no longer at a regular orphanage but in our adoption agency’s transition home. Since he is there we have the option of sending gifts to him via other adoptive families who are traveling to Ethiopia to pick up their own children. It gives me such joy to know that these things that have been in my hands are now in his! I sent this photo album of pictures of our family to him first.

Next I ordered this elephant “lovie” from a lady on Etsy. The back is super soft and the ear is silky. She embroidered his Ethiopian name on it too. I LOVE it. I am sending it to him doused in my perfume, hoping that he will get used to my smell and recognize it when we pick him up.

So there’s a little peek into my life in the last three weeks since we received our referral. I am a tired but very happy, nesting mama.