#Microblog Monday: Doesn't the Nursery Make You Sad?

One of Bryce's friends recently asked him if the nursery makes us sad.

You know, because we're starting to update our homestudy and the tiny rocking chair quite literally has a coating of dust on it...and it seems to be enjoyed most by the cats.

The answer is no, no it doesn't.

I need to dust but I regularly vacuum in there (because cats), and every once in a while I tidy up or change out the books on display or try to fix up the tall bookcases that will eventually look a bit more closet-y. And sometimes I lie on the floor and stare up at the ceiling and try to imagine a new baby in the crib, a baby that can sit up tearing through the baskets of board book looking for a favorite, a night spent rocking a crying baby to sleep in our glider out in the hallway nook that again is a cat favorite but also quite a nice reading spot for those who actually live in the house right now.

Sometimes it's easy to visualize these things, and sometimes it seems painfully far away.

However, the nursery never, ever makes me sad. It is a place of hope. It is a place of promise. It is a place that belongs to a baby that might be baking RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE, a baby whose arrival time is a mystery but who WILL be coming some day.

The door is left open, all the time, and I smile every time I peek in on my way downstairs in the morning to feed the cats before I get ready for work at an early hour. It's not a cordoned off room that feels hopeless, a room posing as a guest room with empty onesies stashed in drawers and a sad years-old pregnancy magazine under the bed, hollow and filled with the unkept promises of infertility treatment. It's a celebration of what's to come, and it is bright and happy and reminds us that we are actually expectant parents, just with the gestational period of a mastodon or something equally large and slow.

Sunday the spring sunshine was just pouring in the windows and I took a boatload of pictures so you can really see what this special space looks like. I mean, how can you be sad when in this cheery, sunny, owl-filled space?

Peeking in from our bedroom door

Looking straight in at my host of stuffed animals and books, books, books

Little blue nook with the windowseat that Bryce built when I first moved in and redid this room. I need new cushions though, thinking of making an all-one in a coordinating fabric to our owl rug or bedding. Love my little (dusty) rocking chair!

Looking from the other end. Some of these shots make the room look spacious. It's more spacious than I thought I would be given its 90 square feet, but still tiny. COZY. It's COZY. 

The left side of the room from the door side (you can see our Tower of Boppy)

The first half of the Long Tall Wall, and what will be a storage/closet thing when we're done taking some shelves out

The other half of the Long Tall Wall, including the Tower of Boppy and Ergo (and my favorite rug ever)

One owl is a lamp, the other is a stars-on-the-ceiling-soothing-noise-maker-night-light.

The giant bookcase head-on, still something to work on. Books and bins, and shelves coming out to make space for hanging clothes and shoes and maybe more diapers. Good to have more on the to-do list. 

Speaking of diapers, we have the start of a little changing table basket, with wipes and those tiny diapers for newborns and the Butt Paste I hope doesn't expire before Mystery Baby gets here because in a fit of optimism I bought a 3-pack online. 

And now for some art we have hanging... these were cards that a local artist created (I think she could be a children's book illustrator). I love them so much:

Strangely appropriate and adorable

And artwork we still have to frame and put up (again, something to do when we're feeling we need to spruce things up and make it a little less dusty):

The kissing puffins are from Maine, if I can't see a puffin in real life I can at least have some in the nursery!  The bottom two are from a series called 100 Owls and I love them so much! Especially the one on the left, which echoes the blue-and green-and-orange color scheme. Plus we love fall. 

Our little rocking nook, also not quite done but passable. It's a great place to sit and if you recline the chair just so and look up it's like you're in an escape pod from Star Wars. The print on the right was given to us by a friend and it made me cry a little. 

So there it is. A sunny place of hope and color and stuff that has us ready for a baby even if it takes a while for one to materialize. A decidedly NOT sad place, even if it's still empty months after we put it together in earnest. It's okay. It won't be empty forever. And the changing table is kept warm by Lucky, who will be sorely disappointed when it becomes off-limits.

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!