Home Implosion, Part Infinity

Nursery photos! Now with new-and-improved visibility!

So see? It's a big...tree of some sort.

My mother-in-law handpainted the trunk and branches, then stenciled the 500 million leaves. And then handpainted veins and stems on those 500 million leaves.

I wandered around and whined that I wished I could help, and so she handed me a paintbrush and told me to stencil some falling leaves.

My bluff, she was called. But I sucked it up and stenciled three whole leaves and I think they look rather smashing.

I can't wait to show my son exactly which leaves I painted just for him. "That one! And that one! Oh, that one actually resembles a leaf, so no, not that one."

The whole thing is varathaned, by the way, so if the little one decides to explore his own artistic talents (that he will no doubt have gotten from me, with the mad-leaf-stenciling skills and all) all over the walls, we can recreate our favorite tableau from Mommie Dearest and scrub it off.

She also painted some adorable woodland creatures -- some on the walls and some on canvases. This raccoon will be hung in the tree as soon as we find some nails.

His name is Rocky, and he will be the star of a charming bedtime story involving the local saloon, a rival named Dan and of course, Gideon's Bible.

And because this is a little boy's room, we had to have some bugs. (Hi Ceiba!)

And a bunny. This one may have been more for my benefit.

And a seekrit hidden chipmunk on the windowsill. Which, no lie, she painted in 20 minutes flat.

Meanwhile, it took us about 45 minutes to hang a new chandelier in our dining room.

See the shades? And see how there are only five of them? Yes. We apparently cannot count.

(And guess where we got those shades from? No, just guess!)

(They are from IKEA. Pray for me.)

Actually, I lied. I did not help install the new chandelier. I claimed that I really, REALLY had to do my thank-you notes and hid upstairs while all sorts of home improvement projects were completed by other people. Trim and windowsills, painted! New paint for bathroom, selected! Caulking! Dusting! Organizing! Lightbulbs in ceiling lamps that burned out last winter, replaced!

I started to paint the bathroom door, but got light-headed and handed the paintbrush to Jason after like, five minutes. Then I took a nap.

THINGS LEFT TO DO:

1) Buy wrong-sized curtains for nursery, exchange said curtains for correct-sized curtains.
2) Buy a rug of some sort before our downstairs neighbor reports us for improper rug-to-bare-floor ratio.
3) Paint the bathroom, because ew.
4) Dilate and efface.
5) Kitchen cabinets.
6) Kitchen floor.
7) Kitchen countertops.
8) Buy groceries.
9) Order refills of all my favorite essential cosmetics because while I'm not so delusional to think that I'll actually make it to Sephora in the next few months, I'm still delusional enough to think that I will apply foundation occasionally.
10) Buy stamps and actually mail thank-you notes.
11) Remove baby registry link before anyone else buys us any gifts so there will be no more thank-you notes to write again, ever.
12) Assemble stroller.
13) Install carseat.
14) Repack hospital bag seven hundred more times because I know I am forgetting something crucial and I'm having dreams about how I've forgotten [something crucial] and they won't let me take the baby home because I don't have [something crucial] but no one will tell me what [something crucial] is.
15) GO INTO LABOR ALREADY. JESUS.