to-do list.

I'll be at the halfway point in this pregnancy before I know it, and it's really starting to press on my mind--I have a lot to do, and I should really buckle down and get to work. I'm typically not good at motivating myself to tackle big projects, but I'm both feeling pretty decent lately as well as actually itching to get our lives and home ready for this kiddo, so I feel like I should take advantage of both of those things and get cracking while the cracking's good.

((So before I continue, let me warn: this is going to be a sort of boring blog post, but that's okay--it's one of those for-myself thinking-aloud-in-writing sort of posts.))

Here is a brief, and likely quite incomplete, list of some of the things I'm talking about:

<> When we know the gender: the nursery.

We're going to hopefully, barring any crossed legs or bad angles, find out the baby's gender on November 20th. (Which, I must add, we can't wait for! It will be pretty awesome to start referring to our kid by name and as a he or she instead of as an "it.") After that point, we're planning to personalize the nursery a bit more, with a painted accent wall dependent on the gender (red for a boy, dark purplish blue for a girl) and a few other odds and ends. I'm not big into the super traditional girly stuff--if we have a daughter she will have nearly the same things as a son--but there will be a few minor differences. We also still have some work to do on furnishing the nursery; we still need some bookshelves, a rocking chair, and a few other bits and pieces.


<> The playroom.

There's this room upstairs in our house that used to be my craft room, but when I moved my craft room downstairs it became a sort of catch-all. We plan to turn this room into a play room. I have quite a lot of junk to move out of there first, and quite a bit of reorganizing to do, but in the end I hope it will have plenty of room for Legos, toys, kiddo's art supplies, and a small corner for my sewing machine to continue to collect dust, but in a more organized fashion.

I've been surfing Pinterest for ideas specific to play spaces for small babies--I want to start the room out at the beginning as a space that is safe and conducive to baby playtime, aside from being the room to house some of the toy collection. So far I've collected some pretty good suggestions, such as a mirror at floor level, age-appropriate toys on the floor in baskets, and other baby-friendly ideas.


<> Purchases and registries.

Pretty soon, when we know the gender of the baby, we'll probably want to go ahead and start thinking about beginning (a) baby registry(ies). We have some pretty excited grandparents-to-be on our hands, and they are more than ready for us to get a registry started for them! We also still want to make a couple more of the larger purchases ourselves, probably, so we need to sort out what we want to buy and what we want to save for our registry.

Is coffee legit to add to a baby registry? I could just say Starbucks gift cards are welcome and encouraged...


<> Classes.

Mr. Epic and I just officially signed up for two classes through the hospital where we will be delivering (a bit more on that forced decision here): a Childbirth & Infant Care class and a Breastfeeding class. It feels good knowing we're signed up, but the classes aren't until February. I'm pretty anxious to go and learn all I can! Meanwhile, I'll have to bide my time with my own reading and research (see below).


<> Maternity leave prep.

Part of me says that preparing for my maternity leave won't be too big of a deal, especially because I've gotten a head start on part of the preparations. And part of me is a little worried about the ambiguous paperwork and deadlines and I'm not sure what else that lies ahead in the foggy unknown. I'm sure I will get everything figured out, but when grownup things like this are going to be a big deal I kind of dread taking care of them.


<> DIYs.

I've kind of fallen off the DIY wagon so far during my pregnancy. I had all these grand intentions of DIYing a moderate-but-reasonable amount of nursery decor, but I've instead spent most of my time parked in front of Netflix on the couch with my sleeping puppies draped over me. (I mean, can you blame me? I wish that's where I was right now.) I don't have any delusions that I'm going to make a dent in what I've pinned on Pinterest in the DIY department, but I would like to nudge myself back to work and see if I can complete a couple of projects, at least.


<> Research and reading.

So far I've read one parenting book since I got pregnant...and then I kind of forgot about doing my homework. But it's time for me to get back to hitting the books! I have so much to learn about between now and April, and I don't know if you've picked up on a theme from this post, but I want to try to be as prepared as I can--because I know you can never truly be prepared for what's to come in new parenthood. So it seems like taking as many steps as I can constructively and proactively take now to get ready is a good idea! Plus, April seems like it's years away. I've got to do something to pass the time!


What is on your to-do list right now? If you've already got a kiddo, what baby-prep tasks weighed on you until you got them completed?