I'm not sure where to begin. I can only preface this all by saying I hope that even after reading and seeing all of this, you'll still want to be my friend.
Today, I tackled the girls' rooms. Let me sorta explain how our rooms are set up around here. We have three bedrooms - a master bedroom, a very large second bedroom, and a tiny third bedroom. As of right now, we call the second bedroom "Dacey's room" because her toys and furniture and Big Girl Bed are in that room. Big Girl Dacey, however, does not sleep in that room. She is actually still Crib Dweller Dacey. The tiny room is what we call "the nursery" because it has the crib and all of Aliza Joy's clothes in it. But that is not where Aliza Joy sleeps. She sleeps in various locations for naps (the crib, the sling, the swing, the Moses basket . . .) and at night, she starts out in a bassinet by our bed, but lands in bed with mom and dad around 2 am when she wakes up to nurse.
Are we all clear on the sleeping arrangements?
Okay, so . . . Dacey's room needs a makeover in the worst possible way. Her Big Girl Bed used to be our guest bed, and we haven't changed the bedding yet to be more Big-Girl-Friendly. We also have way, way, way too many toys and way, way, way too little cute storage. We want to get new bedroom furniture for that room - at the minimum, a new dresser and bookshelves and some sort of toy storage thingie - but just have not been able to find what we are looking for. As I've mentioned before, we're renting, so painting the walls is out of the question, but I sure would like to do some cute wall art. Anyway, the room needs a makeover.
And the nursery needs a makeover, too. We have cute new bedding and wall art for when D finally graduates out of the crib (and when will that be? Your guess is as good as mine.) but I want to wait until AJ moves into that room permanently to fix it up for her.
Now we've come to the part where I am hoping you can still be my friend. Dacey's room was by far the worst in the house. It sorta started around Christmas when I started slipping on getting her room picked up each night at bedtime. Then after Christmas there were, of course, more toys to add to the piles and I started getting really overwhelmed. And as we all know, the overwhelm can lead to the underperform. It just got worse and worse and worse. It finally got to the point where I was having to remind her Dad to be careful not to step om anything pointy and perhaps lethal as he carried her to her bed after her bath each night.
As I snapped the "before" pictures today, I was so sad and mad at myself for letting her room get this way. I feel deeply ashamed. I half-expected Oprah's film crew to show up to film a segment for one of her "You won't be able to believe that people live! like! this!" shows. I really felt like one of the people on those shows.
I don't know how this happened. I knew it was bad, I just didn't realize how bad it was until I saw it on film . . .
So, anyway, here we go. Brace yourself. (and there's a lot of pictures, too, girls. Forgive me!)
The nursery wasn't too awful. Mostly just clothes that had gotten lost on their way home and toys that had spilled out of D's room:
So two trashbags, one bag of toys to Freecycle, and many hours later, here it is. Still needs a visit from a design team, but at least it's organized!
I don't know why, but the child feels compelled to be at least half-naked at all times.
The dolls, they must be naked, too. That one in the carrier is only dressed because I snuck some clothes on her while I cleaned.
The Dora big wheel really belongs in the garage, it just keeps migrating inside . . .
When Dacey saw the end result, she said, "Wow! Cool room!" and promptly started
messing things up playing again.
The nursery looks a might bit better, too.
So, that's that. Tonight as we were reading stories before bed, D kept getting annoyed with me because I would stop reading every little bit to enjoy the view. I couldn't help myself. I feel so. much. better.
