Saturday, February 18, 2012

Preparing the Nest

Another day, another coat of paint.  I've been off work all this week; I had grand ideas of decorating the baby's room in a couple of days, then doing lots of cycling (which everyone tells me will be out of the question once the baby is born), reading, relaxing.

This morning I put the second coat of blue paint (apparently I have no problem with a little gender stereotyping) on the "feature wall".  It still needs a third, as did the three other walls, which are "baby white", which isn't really white at all.  Decorating is not something I usually enjoy, quite the opposite in fact.  The seemingly endless hours of wallpaper stripping, of sanding down and filling in, of masking off and rollering on.  It's not my idea of fun.

One coat of blue, patchy and streaky wasn't the desired effect...


But this is different, this is decorating for our baby.  Our first born, our little boy.  I've loved doing it, I loved going to B&Q and picking out the colours with my wife, I've loved loading up the brushes and roller and the splatters of paint all over my clothes, loved watching Kate doing as much as the extra weight of a thirty week bump would allow.  As the room started to turn from a storage area/dumping ground I have pictured what it will look like with a cot in (being picked up on Tuesday, exciting!), with a selection of shiny new furniture (IKEA, today, nightmarish) and cute baby paraphernalia.  But most of all, I have imagined it having a baby in it, our baby, and I've loved that thought.

The great thing about our baby at the moment is how quiet he is, how perfectly behaved, and (with the exception of one particularly messy dream) how remarkably clean and poo free he is.  But as much as I'm loving the current, prospective, version of our baby, I truly can't wait to have the real thing in my arms, and decorating his room has been fantastic pre-birth bonding.

I'd love to hear how other dads-to-be have experienced nesting, or whether how I've found it is similar to all the mums out there, so leave a comment below!

3 comments:

  1. I know exactly what you mean! I normally hate doing any form of DIY, but it's massively different when there's a little one on the way.

    I really enjoyed decorating my first son's room and have just finished doing another room for the second who is due in six weeks and loved doing that too.

    Good luck with the final coat!

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  2. My husband felt just like this! He absolutely detests painting, but he was humming away in the room painting like he was loving every second of it. He's always trying to come up with new things he can do to improve the room, you men must love preparing for your future children! It's great that it's both the mom and the dad doing so. I've loved setting up and getting ready also, but never expected my husband to WANT to paint!
    Good luck with finishing the room!

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    Replies
    1. Good to know it's not just me! Room is pretty much finished now, just need to decide whether we're having a new carpet and paint the section of skirting board I somehow missed! I can't wait to see it with the cot in there and everything ready.

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