Designing the Perfect Nursery...

Picture this: I was about 8 1/2 months pregnant and I spent my days wandering the aisles of all kinds retail establishments, list in hand. What list? The list I had ripped out of my New Mom Organizer, of course; the list outlining everything I would need to create the perfect nursery.

Baby wash: Check. Baby Lotion: Check. Baby Oil. Why? Who knows, but it's on the list. Check. Gorgeous matching crib sheet set: Check. Check. CHEQUE! Hundreds of checks and almost as many dollars later, I felt so ready for a baby. Boy, was I prepared!

I used to just sit in the rocking chair and gaze upon my perfect nursery full of matching bedding, wonderful artwork (what a find – a framed alphabet picture in my nursery's colours!), the wonderfully stocked cabinet of diaper creams, lotions, potions, elixirs, oils, powders and pastes (no seriously, I had something called Butt Paste). All arranged according to size, all easily accessible. I would sit there and dream about my perfect baby in my perfect nursery.

A few weeks later, Harrison barged right into my life in what can only be described as an infant hurricane. In only a few short days, the nursery I'd worked on all summer became a mess of creams, diapers, clothes, maybe some sweat, surely some tears, and a possible puddle of pee.

You can't put a lotion bottle back in the ‘right’ place when you're keeping one hand on your squirmy infant. You can't remember to empty the diaper genie when you just wrestled a 6-week old into a onesie that Nana Sally bought and you have to go get a picture of him in it before he outgrows it - which may be in 7 more minutes. You can't put laundry away when you've got a newborn!!!!

Soon I learned that baby powder isn’t really used by anyone with lungs (why was it on my checklist?), and that Butt Paste wasn't as good as Penaten, that baby wash smelled like chemicals, and what to do with baby oil is still a mystery.... eventually it all got given away and I was left with my trusty favourites that got the job done a little quicker each time.

What about the matching crib set? My son started to shimmy around in his sleep and one morning I found him snoozing happily with his face in those beautiful bumper pads. Out they went. That comforter that matched the set? My baby has never seen it – you don’t put a heavy comforter on an infant!??. So basically we had a beautiful fitted sheet and a bedskirt left. But that sheet is now a multitude of colours, telling the story of when we started solids... carrots, berries, beef. Yuck, beef. It's been replaced. That wonderful bedskirt? Now that the crib is lowered, it was all bunchy on the ground and nothing we had left matched it. It's gone too.

Remember that alphabet picture I mentioned? Well, my checklist didn't mention not to hang it over the baby's crib (duh!), so now that he can stand and reach it, that big frame is on the floor, on its side, behind the diaper genie. And don’t even ask me about the bedsheet-for-curtain décor I have going on. It keeps the daylight out, okay??

So now I sit in the puke stained rocking chair and gaze at my nursery in the wake of Hurricane Harry. It’s been disassembled, reassembled, and it's certainly nothing you'd see in ‘Today's Parent’ Magazine.

But it’s where my little man has hung his hat for over a year now. It’s where he first peed on me, it’s where we’ve cried together, eaten together, hid from company together. It’s where he first reached his arms out to me. It’s where he peed on me again.

It’s not the nursery I imagined.... but he’s not the baby I imagined either. They are both so much better.

Guest blog post by Cheryl Trachimowich