The Number Field

Over the past few weeks we have gradually acquired and assembled the items that will end up in Sunflower's nursery. In my opinion, only yesterday did everything start to come together. Of course, everything has a story that accompanies it.

Jenny has gone back and forth on what she wanted to use for Sunflower's clothing storage. She wanted something that was light, portable, and inexpensive, and initially leaned towards stacking sets of plastic drawers. We did look for more traditional dressers or chests on craigslist, and found that some were more price-competitive than we imagined. I even went to take a look at one dresser. It was beautiful and custom-made, but still inexpensive. However, it couldn't fit into my Corolla and probably would have been too big for Sunflower's room, so I had to pass on it. At last, faced with mounting stacks of baby clothes that she wanted to organize, Jenny returned to her initial line of thought and sent me to Target for the plastic drawers. She made quick work of filling them, and now our living room is much less cluttered.

We're borrowing a bassinet from Jenny's brother John, but until yesterday it was sitting, disassembled, in a box next to the rest of the baby stuff. Jenny had asked me to try to piece it together, and so while she napped, I did. It all snapped together with very little trouble, only a couple of minor missteps--I had feared something more complicated and was pleasantly surprised.

Jenny has already tested and approved this rocking chair.

When we looked at furniture at Babies-R-Us, we were disappointed that their chair selection only included gliders, with no traditional rockers. Once again I turned to craigslist, and found lots of options. Jenny picked one that she liked, and I went in person to evaluate it. The people selling it seemed to be doing lots of cleaning and decluttering, so I was happy to take it away for their very reasonable asking price. Now it's adorned with a baby quilt from my sister Laura and a little lamb from our ever-expanding collection of plush dolls.

Two of these balloons defy explanation.

I don't anticipate that these balloons will be a permanent feature of the nursery. All three of them remain from Jenny's baby shower several weeks ago. I expected the mylar balloon to last, but I have no explanation for the others. They appear to be standard-issue latex balloons, but we had several others that lost their helium and deflated after just a day or two. These ones must be some sort of super-latex. Maybe they're destined to lose their lift on the day of Sunflower's birth.

Finally, I have the biggest news of all. Our apartment lease term ends at the beginning of March, just a few weeks after Sunflower's due date. It's not an ideal time to move, but the short term rate for staying in this apartment was just way too much. In any case, we struggled to find a suitable new apartment. We picked out one complex, but thought that it was full. I checked with them one last time last Friday, and learned that they had available apartments, and moreover, their prices had dropped! That afternoon I rushed over to pick up an application. I see no reason why we would be denied, so we're resting easier, knowing that we have secured a place to live.