Preparations

In addition to getting Aaron transitioned to a big boy bed, there are several other things we need to accomplish before Audrey's arrival. One is getting the changing table out of Aaron's room. Although we've had a changing pad set up in the guest bathroom between the twin sinks since he was an infant and haven't used the changing table to get him dressed in well over a year, it has still been in his room storing his clothes in the 4 wicker baskets that came with it.

I actually have a partially repainted dresser in the garage that was mine growing up. After I moved out, it went to my nephew. But it was available again before Aaron was born, so I took it and planned to repaint it for Aaron's room. But then Thom got me worried that it might have been painted with lead paint, having been bought back in the 60s for my oldest brother. So I never finished painting it since I wanted to leave some exposed original paint to test for lead. I did eventually get a lead paint test kit and the preliminary swap looks clean. There is a more advanced test I want to perform just to be safe, especially since I had sanded the paint down prior to repainting so if there is any lead it would be in the paint dust that is coating the inside of the drawers and could get on his clothes. But I'm reasonably sure it is lead-free. But since the baskets on the changing table were working, I didn't have incentive to get the dresser out.

And now that Aaron is two and starting to get into everything and generally behave like a doofus, I'm not sure I trust him in his room by himself with a dresser. We'd definitely have to get a furniture strap. One of my few vivid memories from our house in Ohio (we moved when I was 4 1/2) is of trying to climb the drawers to get to a music box on the top to show a friend of mine. I knew I wasn't supposed to stand on the drawers, but I knew I'd be fine. The next thing I know, I'm pinned between the dresser and the bed. I don't remember being hurt. My only thought was that Mom was going to be so mad at me. My friend had to go get her since we couldn't stand the dresser up on our own. So I'm a little nervous about putting a dresser in Aaron's room even with a furniture strap. Eventually I will get the dresser set up, but for now, his clothes are small enough to all fit in these cubes so there is no hurry.

Instead, we put in the black cubes you see above. Thom has had them forever - at least since before I knew him. That was his dresser until we bought bedroom furniture 2 1/2 years ago. They've been sitting mostly empty in our closet. So I dusted them off and put them in Aaron's room. He was thrilled. He insisted on helping me put his clothes away. He might still try to climb them, but at least he won't be crushed if they fall on him.

And now the changing table is standing empty in the guest room/office, ready for me to start putting away clothes and burp clothes for Audrey. Which brings me to another task I needed to perform before October. Sorting through baby clothes. Until Aaron was about 12 months, I was good about putting his outgrown clothes into storage bags under our bed according to size, as well as hand-me-downs he hadn't grown into yet. But I kept finding myself having to re-open one of the bags that I had vacuum sealed to add something and eventually I gave up. New hand-me-downs were piling up in his closet, completely unorganized. I would periodically try to comb through it all to find new shorts that fit or whatever else he needed.

I also recently received some hand-me-down girl's clothes from my friend Heidi. Although I tried to only buy gender-neutral clothing the first year, a lot of clothes we were given were specifically for a little boy, so it was nice to get a few girl outfits. I'm conflicted because I hate girly pink clothes, but Heidi had a variety of hand-me-downs and I found several cute things that I added to my collection.

I spent hours yesterday going through all the clothes and finally getting everything organized from newborn to 5T. For stuff under 2T (the sizes Aaron has outgrown), I separated stuff into boy-only stuff that can be stored indefinitely, and gender-neutral/girl stuff that I will be getting out over the next 2 years. I also pulled out all the 0-3 month clothes, along with burp clothes and receiving blankets which I plan to wash and put away for Audrey.

I did realize as I was going through the clothes that a lot of the 3 month outfits are summer outfits, so that could be a problem. I knew with Aaron being an April baby and Audrey being an October baby that I'd probably be off by a season in clothing, but I had hoped to have enough overlap to be OK. I may end up having to buy some winter clothes for Audrey though. Unless we get some hand-me-downs from her cousin who was born last August and has a wardrobe more on target with what we'll need.

Below is the result of my hard work. Those are storage bags waiting to be vacuumed flat. The boxes in the back are old clothes of mine waiting to go to Goodwill. Then there is a pile in front of that in paper bags of baby clothes for Goodwill. And the pile falling onto the floor is a stack of stuff that I need to wash.