In Which Peach Cries Over a Chair

I had been planning to repurpose my old Ikea Poang chair for a nursing chair in Pip’s room, thinking it would save money and not look like…. well, one of those nursing gliders. I was sitting in the trusted Poang, all set to order fabric to recover the bad boy when I realized something terrible. I couldn’t get out of the chair. Now, I realize I will not be so huge and pregnant once the nursing chair is required for actual use. But I also will not have the luxury of hoisting myself out with two hands while holding a newborn. Alas, the Poang was out.

Disappointed but not yet discouraged, I closed the tabs of fabric stores in my browser and opened Craigslist instead. I found some soft looking upholstered gliders, but they all looked like they’d been through war. And I couldn’t imagine trying to recover them to look any better (sewing is not one of my skills!). So I gave up on these vaguely normal looking chairs and tried my luck and the dreaded gliders. Do you know what these chairs look like? Here is a visual in case you’ve managed to avoid them:

Right?! How can I put that in my home? Now I was discouraged. I thought, “oh, I can just cover it!” But suddenly this chair that I already want out of my house before it’s even moved in starts to cost a pretty penny. Nursery on a budget, friends! “Okay,” I reasoned, “I’ll look at new chairs then.” Please, whatever you do, don’t go look at upholstered gliders on Pottery Barn’s website. Just avoid this pain.

Back to the original plan then. I’ll get one of the stupid chairs from Craigslist, I’ll recover it as cheaply as possible, and I’ll get it out of the house as soon as I can. I was all set to pick one up from a consignment shop when I decided to try searching Craigslist one more time for a rocker. And then?

Magic. Destiny. Miracle.

My chair was THERE. Pottery Barn upholstered rocker with feather cushions and a washable slipcover in the colors of Pip’s room. And I could afford it. I held my breath as I sent an email inquiring about the perfect chair’s availability. When the email came back “Can you come tonight?” I almost cried. She was MINE.

I can’t explain to you the workings of a pregnant brain. I can’t tell you exactly why not being able to find a chair that I liked and could afford was so very stressful for me. Except that I know I’m going to spend hours in this chair, and I’m already a little nervous about nursing. It was the last major piece of furniture we needed for Pip’s room (and the only one we bought), and I feel now like I might actually get a nursery put together.

I mean, I can try to explain the emotion of the chair search and the joy of finding the one we did, but how about I just tell you “it’s a pregnant thing” and then show you a picture of the gorgeous chair? Yeah, sounds better to me, too. 🙂

What’s in a Name?

Naming a baby sounds like so much fun in theory! It’s a great game when you’re a teenager and naming future babies that you can’t even imagine having. That said, thank God I grew out of some of those names!

The real thing is a little more complicated. Suddenly we’re responsible for giving a real person a real name that he’s going to have for his whole life! (don’t screw this up, Peach!) There are things to take into account like: initials, monograms, nicknames, associations with famous people, family names, and on and on. And two people deciding is much harder than just one teenage girl. Sure I like the name Jacob, but Pip’s dad has a bad memory of a Jacob once upon a time. He might like David, but that’s an ex-boyfriend of mine. Darn! We also wanted a name that not everyone has. The NameVoyager tool was great for this!

Anyway, that kind of trouble is NOTHING compared to the voices from the village. The first question almost anyone has is, “so, have you thought of names?” Being first time parents, we of course shared our ideas with everyone at first. Boy, was this a mistake. It turns out everyone has an opinion about what our Pip should be named. And, while it’s relevant if a name belonged to my crazy ex, it simply doesn’t matter that the name we like best belonged to an enemy of an acquaintance. Our families, too, seem to feel they have veto power over the names we choose.

In reality, of course, whatever we decide to name Pip, our families and friends will love him the same. Once he is born, even if they think our choice in name was absurd, they won’t tell it to our faces like they do now. They’ll wait to talk about how crazy we are until we leave, like decent people. 😉 I just wish everyone would think about that part now. What if we choose Sylvester and you think that’s a stupid name, and you told us so? We’re not going to forget that in a few months when Pip comes out, and you may wish you had kept your feelings to yourself.

I know what really is happening is that everyone is tapping into that fun teenage-girl “ooh, I want to name something!” excitement. I honestly love hearing what everyone else would name Pip if it were up to them. But because it can be upsetting when people we love have criticisms of our favorite names, we have decided to keep Pip’s name a secret until he’s born, even though we are pretty sure we know what it is.

So until he’s here, Pip he shall be! Did you have this experience when naming your kids? What are some of your favorite names?