How To Create a Perfect Nursery

Talk to your sister on the phone. Tell her you are thinking that Winnie the Pooh might be the theme of your nursery, that you love the sage green in the sheets you saw. Answer the phone when she calls to tell you that she just bought all your crib bedding on sale at Target. Follow her instructions when she tells you that you should go to Home Depot and buy a gallon of Christopher Robbin’s Swing from the Disney paint collection. Pick her up at the airport and make sure she has her favorite pumpkin spice coffee creamer and blue painters’ tape available when she wakes up in the morning. Sit on the soft new carpeting in the nursery and lean against the stark white walls and talk to her while she removes the outlet cover plates and tapes off all the woodwork.Open the windows and close the bedroom door and sit in the living room with the cats while your sister trims the edges with sage green Christopher Robbins’ Swing. Blink your eyes awake when she comes in the living room and tells you she wishes she could have found your camera to take a picture of the 3 big bellies napping in the living room.

At the fancy baby furniture store, oogle over the first crib you see and listen when your sister tells you it’s the same crib she bought for her son 6 years ago, only in a different color. Walk through the store admiring all the other cribs and listen as she tells you what is good and bad about each. Be grateful that your younger sister has been through all of this before, that you don’t have to enter into it completely blindly. Tell her that you think you like the darker wood better and sigh in relief when she tells you that she thinks it would look much nicer against Christopher Robbins’ Swing than the honey-colored crib. Listen as the sales associate gives you the spiel on the different expensive safety features of all the mattresses they sell. Turn to your sister and say “Whatever you think.” Be relieved when she tells you that the $80 Target mattress is just as good as the $200 mattresses you’re looking at. “Mine is 6 years old and Sarah still sleeps on it,” she says.

Be suddenly overwhelmed with emotion when she tells you, after she has lifted and struggled to fit the unassembled crib box into your Subaru Outback, that you’re going back into the store to order the rocking chair you love. Be glad you are wearing your sunglasses and nobody can see the tears building in your eyes.

Look at fabric swatches and be relieved when she says direct things like “Oh not that one,” and then apologizes for taking over. Tell her you are glad to have her there, that it reminds you of the time she helped you pick out a couch at Dayton’s Home Store. Remember how you had both laughed at Dayton’s when the sales associate left the room for a minute and you speculated that she thought you were a lesbian couple. “We could kiss,” she had said and you had nearly wet your pants laughing.

At Target carry the mattress pads and covers (2 of each so you always have one clean) while your sister carries the crib mattress. Back at home nap in front of the TV while your sister rollers the nursery walls. Admire the perfect color and how you’d probably love that color for your own bedroom as your sister walks around the room and points out flaws in the paint job that you can’t even see. Tell her it’s perfect.

Sit on the floor and hold wood pieces in place and hand allen wrenches and bolts back and forth until the Amber Baby’s Dream crib sits solidly against the newly painted south wall of the nursery. Exclaim how much you love it. Be grateful that Mom is paying for it.

Pay attention as your sister explains how to place the bedding on the mattress, the importance of taking the mattress out of the crib to do it rather than bending over the railings and struggling. Listen as she explains when to use the bumpers and how to tie them.

Thank your sister once again for all her hard work, for everything she has done for you over these last six months.

Later that night after she’s gone to bed, sneak back into the nursery and stand over the crib and study the little Poohs and Piglets and Tiggers and imagine what it will be like when your little boy is laying there. Panic. And again be grateful that your sister will always be there for you helping you through each scary step of this incredible journey.

Pooh and Barb and Ann (and a nursery color that is much prettier than it is in this photo).