There's a lot of different questions you get asked over and over if you're pregnant - one of the more benign topics, though, has to with the nursery. Have you picked a theme? Is it done? What does it look like? It’s certainly an easier topic than symptoms or complications.
I honestly think it's mostly just a good distraction, especially if you’re pregnant with your first. Focus on the nursery instead of everything that's worrying you. So back then, we did. E got a sheep themed nursery (which is hilarious because it's G, not E that loves sheep), and I made sure everything was decorated top to bottom.
It's been updated a bit over the years, and isn't really sheep themed anymore, but he still has pictures on the wall and a nicely decorated room. It helps that the room is small, but also that he got most of the furniture. For example, E and H share a dresser which happens to be in E's room.
When I was pregnant with G, I painted the walls and put a few things in his room, but mostly it stayed empty. There really wasn’t a need for another dresser, and we never really picked out a theme. Looking back, it’s interesting to see our original plan was to have E and G switch rooms at one point - which obviously never happened. I’m sure we’ll move kids around eventually, but for now they’re very attached to where they are.
The room has worked for us, mostly because we’ve used it as an extra playroom. I’ve always felt a little bad that G didn’t have as decorated a room, though. At one point he only had two pictures hanging on the wall: one was a Shepard Fairey print I'd bought when I was pregnant with E, and the other was a collage my sister had made us of baby pictures of E. G pointed to it one day and asked if it was him, and I had to tell him no, sorry. Actually there were no pictures of G in his room at that time.
So now that G and this baby will be sharing a room, I figured it was time to give them something to be excited about.
We went with a dinosaur theme, adding some fun to the wall along with some long overdue photos. Both kids were so excited to see the room as it progressed. They often want to play in baby's crib, and love looking at the pictures of themselves on the wall. G is also very excited his Shepard Fairey print is still there - I had taken it down at one point in the middle of the project, and it really upset him. I guess he's gotten attached! (There’s actually three prints in the series - another is in E’s room and one is in the attic that I guess technically belongs to this new baby, but we’ll probably wait to hang it up for now. They’re big!)
Also G, lover of all things soft and fluffy, keeps trying to steal the stuffed dinosaur that I’ve told him belongs to the baby. We’ll see who ends up with it!
But for now, here’s what the room looks like:
The other side of the room mostly looks the same, so I didn’t take many pictures of it. G’s crib is there along with a few other things hung on his wall. His ‘G’ is over his crib, as well as a bulletin board that keeps all of his photos and cards that he likes looking at.
Mostly it feels good to have accomplished something. It’s certainly getting hard as I get bigger.
