Anne-Davnes Elser

~:B I M P ' S • C R I B:~

For the past 2 weeks, Mom has been in and out of the house, checking up on me, feeding me, cleaning and blitzing the house, shopping for groceries and buying furniture for the nursery. God bless her. Dad's also been helping her and checking in on me. When she started, we had an empty nursery. But today we don't! After moving a few choice pieces of furniture around, we had the room pretty well set up. It's amazing how quickly things come together. Ummm, especially if you're sitting and just watching it happen. I am very lucky.

One of the cool things we did at first was to purchase a vintage Hoosier Kitchen. This is a piece of furniture called a kitchen, before a kitchen was a room. Just a cabinet with tons of drawers, cubbies and cupboards. There's a flour bin and sifter on the far left, with a tin drawer for storing bread on the right. There is also a handy movable tin shelf you can tuck in or pull out. I've got one in my studio that I make good use of. I grew up with this thing in my bedroom for years. We decided instead of a dresser or changing table, one of these cool pieces would be ideal for changes and baby equipment. Got this piece in Clayton, GA before I was doomed to bed rest. So we built the rest of the room starting with this one piece.

Mom went to an all-things-baby resale shop called Cribitz. That's where she got everything else you see here in this lovely photo. There are more detailed photos for you to see if you'd like to take a look. Pretty cool. She found custom made curtains (the long pieces on either side of the window) that matched perfectly the red toile valance I made years ago. Uncanny. The ochre walls screamed for natural wood and a hint of red accents, which make the room warm and soothing without appearing blanched or dusted with white, which is not what we wanted. Also custom made was the crib bumper and dust ruffle. Beautiful pieces you can't buy at BabiesRUs. Everything you see here was gently used and at a terrificly discounted price. We even got 2 strollers (one for us, one for Mom and Dad - remember that they live less than 2 miles from us and will be watching the Bimp while I teach at the beginning of the week!) and a rocking bassinet for our bedroom.

Woo hoo! We spent the afternoon in this new lovely room just looking around and soaking in the space. I feel a great relief at having this stage completed. Only thing left to do is fill it with toys and clothes and gear, etc. And continue to let Bimp gain weight in my peaceful belly. Oh! One more thing I want to do is to paint a big black beautiful "A" above Bimp's crib. Think I'll ask my auntie Kris to do that one for me, since I'll be sittin' for a while.

Thanks to the generous help of my friend Molly, who has just made it through the first few months of her baby girl Suzanna's life. Molly guided me through the BabiesRUs labyrinth and helped me choose the right gear. I've got 3 registries set up, one of which is full of all the storybooks I loved as a child. Things are starting to become real and very, very fun.