Baby Stuff

There have been a few people asking about baby stuff-- colors, gender, etc. This is my attempt at answering some of those questions. Whatever colors you see in this photo are our baby colors as this comprises our entire collection of baby room stuff so far except for a white crib. In Andrew's post he put a link to pictures of the flat and this photo is in that collection, but I figured it might be easier if I just singled it out and explained it a bit. Basically the decorating scheme is "things that have history or meaning for me or that I just think are beautiful".

The painting in the photo is one that I did that really has no other place in the apartment so I figured it was gender-neutral enough to go in baby room. The rug on the back of the couch is a little hook rug that a woman in Bulgaria made and gave me for when my baby learns to crawl. It has way too much meaning for me to let baby drool on but I have carried it with me and waited for many years to use in a baby room so here it is. Notice there are pink and blue roses in it-- it's not a hint at gender. We still don't know baby's gender and hope to keep it that way for a couple more months.

The Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals were given to me by a very generous ex-boyfriend of sorts. The story behind them is funny, but not one I want to repeat here, and so I have held on to them until the day I could use them for something other than taking up storage space. The actual Pooh-bear is one I bought with Holly in Minnesota this summer and so it has happy memories associated with it. I couldn't find the original bear the ex gave me and so Holly was kind and patient enough to search through a few stores with me until we could find a Classic Pooh.

There are a few more personal things that I would love to add to baby room, but I don't have them here. One is a quilt I made while dating Andrew. It's just a little throw quilt made of strips of solid color fabircs in varying widths. Nothing special, but I remember making it one weekend when we had first started dating and I've always liked it. Right now it's sitting in a trunk in Andrew's room in Utah so I'm hoping I can talk his mom into bringing it over when she comes out. The other thing I'd like to have in baby room is unfortunately in our storage unit-- at least that's what I'm hoping. It's a Mary Engelbright pillow with a quote from The Little Prince on it. That book was a big part of Andrew and my relationship when we first started dating and so I'd love to have that reminder in baby room. And Mary Engelbright was something that I picked up from my friendship with Holly, another one of the great friends of my life.

I have also been creating sketches for a painting bearing a quote from John Keats that I would like to make for the baby room. It will probably be a light yellow background with some bright blue butterflies and flowers surrounding the script. I found the quote in the forward to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein-- not exactly the book to find baby room quotes in-- but it was something I wanted to be reminded of often as I spend time with baby. I'll post the quote below.

So there it is, baby room. Oh, there is a blue knit blanket on the couch, but it's not a gender hint. I swear we don't know anything other than that baby looks like Who from Whoville ( I think some people feel like we know but just aren't telling). I've had one dream it was a boy, one it was a girl. The blanket was just a very beautiful shade of blue and very plain and simple and because I love beautiful things I snatched it up.

Great spirits now on earth are sojourning,

These, these will give the world another heart

And other pulses: hear ye not the hum

Of mighty workings?

-John Keats in a letter to a friend, 1816