Old friends

Well one thing I can say is that I am a much more productive person when I'm without my computer! Matt keeps commenting to me that he feels badly because every time he comes home I've been rearranging furniture or doing something to the house.

Today I took out our old pack n'play and gave it a good scrubbing. As I was cleaning, I couldn't help but let my mind wander down memory lane.

Our little pack n' play was lovingly purchased by my parents. I remember going to Babies R Us with my mom to pick it out. I had looked at several kinds, but decided that I wanted the smaller one (it's a Graco Travel Lite Crib, about 1/2 the size of a normal pack n'play) because at the time Matt and I were living in a one bedroom apartment where our bedroom measured 10' x 10'. We were expecting to be "snug" to say the least, and I knew there would be no room for anything larger. It's a soothing green color and I just really liked everything about it. When Adrianne was born, I remember her sleeping in it. And she slept in it for the first 6 months of her life! That was when we finally moved into a two bedroom apartment and got a full sized crib.

Later, I remember getting it out again so that I could have Riley in our room for the first few months after she was born. It was so perfect to have my Riley-Roo close enough those early months so that I didn't have to wander into another room for all the middle of the night feeds. When Riley was around 4 months old, we put the pack n'play away and she moved into the big crib and began sharing a room with Adrianne.

For almost three years the pack n'play was stored out of sight, until it was needed for Emmaline. And again like a faithful old friend, the little pack n'play was ready to safely hold my new, sweet sleeping baby.

When we were moving, I almost gave away the little pack n'play. Emmaline was around 4 months old when we moved across the country, and I knew that she would start sleeping in the big crib once we were settled. We had a lot of things that needed to make the move with us, and since we already had another, larger pack n'play, I debated letting it go. But for some reason I just couldn't part with it. So once we were all moved in, the little pack n'play was again stored away out of sight, and I was unsure if it would ever be used by us again.

But as I was wiping it down today, preparing it yet again to cradle another of my babies as they dream, I was SO glad that I hung on to it. Somehow having my newborn sleep in anything else those first few months would seem all wrong. Even though it is almost 7 years old, it is still in great shape. And now that we are having a boy, I'm so glad that it's that soothing green color and not something overly girlie.

So now it stands ready in the corner of my bedroom. Waiting, once again, to hold my sleeping babe.