Crack is to Bobby Brown as baby clothes are to new parents

So far we've done a fantastic job of not buying Parker anything until after the baby showers. It's a good thing it's baby shower season now because we have officially broken down and given into the extreme cuteness of little baby boy things....well, maybe more me than Hunter but he's doing his fair share. I mean, have you seen the baby boy clothes lately? Little plaid shirts and other intensely cute things line the aisles of every maternity store (which is the gateway drug into buying all of the totally precious things that your child will never need...like newborn shoes). Then, after shopping for your own morphing body for several months, the cute little things are forever imprinted in your brain and you find yourself "browsing" the baby section because it's conveniently close to the maternity section anyway. I'm telling you, they've got this thing figured out!


So anyway, we have each bought him one thing. I started it by walking through Target one day trying to buy some time before I had to be somewhere else. And then I saw it: the most adorable pair of shoes you will ever see in your whole life...with orange which is Hunter's favorite color...and on clearance so it would have been silly not to buy it, right? I got Parker infant shoes. I totally did. He won't ever walk in them because he won't be able to walk when his feet are that small. The bottoms of those shoes will never even touch the ground but oh man are they adorable!

And, of course, the cat is all up in my business. It's her job...I'm pretty sure. I can put anything new down in the house and she will literally appear out of nowhere to investigate. She's like a ninja.

And then the other day Hunter and I went to Old Navy to get me some more clothes because it stopped being cute to wear shirts that ride up my belly when I moved out of backwoods country Indiana. Also, Old Navy is one of the stores that puts the maternity section inside of the baby section but we did really good while I was shopping. It was when we came out of the dressing room and saw the huge wall of baby clearance that did us in.

Now I have to pause from the story to give you very important information: Hunter has this thing for clothes that couldn't possibly match any other article of clothing on the planet. I don't know what it is but it's his absolute favorite thing. His wardrobe and closet are full of plaid shorts, plaid shirts, shirts with odd colors, and his all time favorite- the bright blue and orange Hawaiian print shirt- aka the party shirt. This is real, people. This is the world's busiest, brightest shirt ever created. And Hunter usually tries to wear it with plaid shorts.

So back to the wall of clearance...I was immediately sucked in by some tractor beam and started browsing. Hunter was being strong and tried to pull me away when I found it: the Parker party shirt. It's not as bold as the original party shirt but they would most definitely 'match' according to Hunter's vocabulary. Plus it was adorable and again, on clearance. So Hunter told me to get it pretending he was doing me a favor but I know the truth. He is jacked about Parker growing in to this one.

I am so glad the first shower is in two days because I don't know how much longer I would be able to hold out on buying more of the necessities...like infant shoes and party shirts.

Parker's Room

This is the month of baby showers! I'm excited because number one, I've never been to a baby shower and now my belly is the reason for the season and number two, we get to start putting Parker's room together! Before we could start putting up all of the awesome boy things we are going to be blessed with, we had to do a little renovating courtesy of the cats.

A few months ago we were out of town a LOT. I'm talking almost every weekend for a couple of months or so. The cats didn't seem to like this too much so, naturally, they let us know by not peeing in the litter boxes, but right outside of them. Nice, huh? This resulted in a lot of ruined, very potent smelling things. We rented the ever so awesome Rug Doctor which took out an unbelievable amount of pee...more than I wanted to admit was in the carpet...but, alas, we couldn't get it all up. So we took out the carpet and the ruined part of the padding...and other things that I didn't know existed like floor tacking (which looks like a torture device but I'm told it's to hold the carpet in place). And the base boards around the anger area need to be sanded down and repainted.

Fortunately though, we don't have actual wood floors under the carpet (thanks to the ever cheapening of building materials) just particle board with a massive amount of glue in it so the pee didn't soak into anything else.

Anyway, this is what Parker's room currently looks like...and 9 weeks from his due date, haha. But seriously though, we are getting a move on it now....

So we've got some work ahead of us. And the cats are in the closet because they rushed in there the second I opened the door to the off limits room.

Isn't the particle board just lovely? The poor baseboards need some TLC before we get the new carpet in there.

And here is the sweet carpet that we got for $3 something a sq. ft. when it was originally $10 something a sq. ft. Totally awesome. It's a nice upgrade from the carpet in the rest of the upstairs. The new, urine free padding is resting on top, all ready for installation. You know, you don't really appreciate the concept of 'urine free' until you don't have it anymore. It's a beautiful thing. Now my son will be able to breathe in his new room and not get extremely sick. That's always a nice thing.

That's all for Parker's room. I'll post more updates as things get finished. We have a shower in Tampa this weekend and one in Charlotte in two weekends then one in March sometime. Those should all get nice, healthy urine free updates.