Claire's First Overnight & Nesting for Clark...

Well, the time has come.  With Clark due in only 11 weeks (give or take) we decided it would be good for Claire to try spending the night at Nana and Opa's House...for the first time away from Mama since she was born.  It is important to me that we do this now, so that if Claire needs to spend the night at her Nana and Opa's house while I am in labor with Clark, I know that it will be familiar to her and that she is comfortable with it.  Bringing home a new baby is going to rock her world, so I am trying to prepare for the transition the best I can to make it smooth for her.

I had mixed emotions about this milestone.  I was sad that she was big enough for this time to be here and by the thought of her being "on her own" (although totally with Nana and Opa the whole time),  and a part of me was really looking forward to accomplishing a ton of stuff and "nesting" to get ready for Clark!

We got to Nana and Opa's around 4:30.  She was pretty excited about her "overnight"!

She was as happy as could be and busy playing with toys when we were saying goodbye, but she did stop to say, "Bye Mama, Dada...I see you in da morning."  That just about pulled at every string of my heart, but I smiled and told her I loved her with all my heart and hugged her tight.  I knew she was in good hands.

After we dropped her off we quickly ran in and out of about 6 stores running errands in record speed without having to take time for the car seat, stroller, or carts!  Then we ate dinner at In and Out...when it wasn't even quite dinner time yet.  So weird to be "off our schedule"!  My mom sent me this text which warmed my heart and reassured me I would make it through this night...

By 7:00 we were home and what would normally have been a busy time of cleaning up dinner and starting bath time was instead a quiet and still moment in our house....how strange!!  

So, I started the first of 10 loads of laundry (4 for Clark and our usual 6 loads/week) and prepared to tackle my HUGE project for the night of cleaning out Clark's closet and organizing all his stuff!

This was the current state of the closet. (THIS IS AFTER 1 CLEAN OUT ALREADY, will blog that later...there was actually MUCH, MUCH more in here before) This closet serves numerous purposes including a coat closet, our holiday storage closet, where I store 5 boxes of books from teaching first grade, baby stuff, crafts, wrapping paper and bags and anything else that needs a place it seems.  Somehow, this has to be Clark's closet too...hahaha!  What a task!

This was the pile of stuff that needed to be organized including some guest room furniture that still needs to be sold, along with some toys Claire has outgrown.

I also had this HUGE pile of bedding from the guest room furniture that we just sold.  We kept the bedding in case we get an air mattress in the future.

I packed all of this into 2 space bags...

and Ta-Da!

If only there were a space bag big enough to condense everything we own, hahaha!

Anyhow, back to 7:30...this is what I was doing...

The room was a wreck and I was hammering nails in the closet to hang wreaths to make more room for clothes and there is no way I could have done any of that if Claire were asleep!

By 10pm I was feeling good about the progress...

Here is his closet without the swing that we are storing in here until he is born,

and with the swing,

The rest of the room looking much better than before!  I can not believe how much I fit in that closet!  It is PACKED!

I went to sleep that night knowing that Claire was doing great and I really wasn't worried about her, but I barely slept all night, if at all.  It just felt to strange to be home and in bed without her.  I kept reaching for her monitor and wanting to look at her.  Finally around 5:00am I think I drifted off a little bit.

The following morning I finished washing all of Clark's clothes, bedding, blankets, burp cloths and bibs...oh my gosh...they are so cute!  This looks like a lot but it is actually two years worth of clothes all the way from Newborn to 24 months.  I have been Clearance shopping since November when we found out we were having a boy and scored big time at Gymboree with items costing literally $2-$3 each for their Black Friday Clearance.  After organizing everything I discovered we have quite an abundance of 3 month clothes and practically nothing after that until 18 months!  So, there are still some holes to fill in there, but thanks to my friend Laura who has 2 boys I think we will be getting to borrow some awesome hand-me-downs!  Thank you, Laura!!

We worked and worked and worked up until we went and got Claire.  I had been getting regular updates and photos from my mom and knew she was having a blast.  She gave us each a big hug when we got there.  Her first request when she got home was to be "Super Claire" in her tiara, red cape, Cinderella glass slippers and a wand!" 

Here she is right before bed...don't we all sleep in a tiara and glass slippers, haha!

Coming toward me and saying, "tickle, tickle, tickle, mama!"

Storytime with Dada!  We missed her and we're glad she's home and also very glad she did so well on her first overnight.  She slept all through the night and was as happy as could be the whole time.  Good job, Claire!  And, thank you Nana and Opa for taking such good care of her and even making her one of her FAVORITE foods, "Opa's Quesadillas"!

We love you big girl!! 

xoxo