Preparing for Stockemer Offspring #2 / Melanie's Big Girl Bed

Baby #2 is fast approaching her arrival date, and now that the holidays are over I feel that I can focus on getting ready for her. We've decided on the name Claire Therese (haven't decided if we're using the ` marks yet). Tomorrow night we'll be going to the baptism prep class at church - the last one we'll have to go to since they only require 1st and 2nd time parents to go. We moved Melanie into her "big girl" bed before Christmas and will hopefully finish transitioning the changing table and glider out with the regular dresser sometime this next week, allowing me to finish up putting Claire's room together. Matt has dug all the baby clothes storage tubs out of "the pit" that is our storage room (still working on sifting through the post-basement finishing mess and probably will be for quite some time) and I've started washing everything in Dreft. We'll have to buy some new clothes since Claire is more of a winter baby and Melanie was a spring baby, but I'm trying to hold off until she gets here to see how big she is. Melanie was so small she wore her newborn stuff for a couple of months, but in reading the tags most of it says up to 9/10 lbs, so if Claire is bigger then there won't be much of a need for that size, so I have enough to get us through the first few days and we'll go from there.

It's starting to feel more "real" now. Not that it wasn't before, but with the time approaching so quickly I'm starting to feel like stuff needs to be done. I didn't really get that feeling with Melanie - no big burst of nesting at the end. I just contentedly sat on my rear end reading for the month I had between when I quit work and when Melanie arrived. Maybe it was because I had all this stuff done by the time I quit work. As soon as I had a baby shower I'd come home and wash all the stuff and hang it up and find appropriate places for all the other gifts. This time is different. I actually have a little one to keep me occupied, so I have to make time to do all the little things that were so easy to accomplish the first time. I worry that I'm not spending enough time getting ready for Claire, like she's somehow already getting less attention than Melanie, and she hasn't even officially arrived yet! I'm sure that's just mother's guilt, and I'll have to learn to live with it. Nonetheless, it's there and I don't like it very much!

Something I've done for Claire that I didn't do for Melanie as a newborn - I've knitted her a hat! (granted Melanie didn't really need a warm hat in April, and I didn't know how to knit then, but I need something to alleviate my guilt!)

It's super soft and I have a couple different colors of ribbon I can put in it to go with her outfits.

Melanie really did not like me putting the hat on her doll. As soon as I put it on she started saying "No! At!" and pointing at the hat that the doll normally wears. She only calmed down once I put everything back just as it should be in her eyes. Oh, how little Claire is going to rock Melanie's world!

How Melanie is preparing for Claire - ramping up the pouting quotient

The "Big Girl" bed

We opted to keep Melanie in the room she's been in and just switch the furniture instead of having her switch furniture and rooms and not be the center of attention any more. We figured the less disruption we could create in her little world the better. Plus, this way we don't have to patch all the holes in the wall from where we have Melanie's name hanging up, just to make more holes for Claire's name instead, and Claire will get some new decorations, so she won't strickly have hand-me-downs on everything.
We've already established a routine to go along with bedtime and the new bed. Matt gets Melanie and a sippy cup, she acts like she's crying (even though there are no tears and she isn't really sad - it's an odd part of her routine - more of a vocal protest than anything) they collect Spot the dog and the yellow bunny (which come out of the room with her every morning when she gets up), come give me a kiss and a hug (smiling by now), and go to her room. Matt lays her down, gives her her cup and sets a toy on either side of her, tucks her in and says goodnight and sits in the glider in the dark for a while until he can sneak out. She's very particular and if you skip something, like only tucking her in with the sheet and not the comforter, she makes sure to point it out. OCD is alive and well in our firstborn!

Giving Spot some lovin'

She really enjoyed posing for these pictures - that's why there are 4 when one would suffice!