Her Very Own Room

Despite getting caught up in all the Harry Potter hoopla, taking recent trips to Rocky Mountain National Park and the French Quarter of New Orleans, and discovering that my child will be a daughter, I have not worked up the gumption to actually blog about any of these subjects. Though I considered each of them in detail. However, the reality of my impending fatherhood is weighing more and more heavily on my mind, and I thought I'd share a few thoughts with the few readers who still stop by here now and then.

Seeing the baby (although only blurry bits of her) during the ultrasound three weeks ago really drove home the point that there is a little person growing inside Frema, who if we could see clearly would look like just that. A little person. Freaky. Apparently, though, it still wasn't a blogworthy subject at the time. Plus, Frema covered it all quite well. So that's my excuse for being a lazy blogger who can't even post an ultrasound picture with the headline "It's a Girl!"

Over the weekend, my dad and I put together the crib that my parents were nice enough to buy for their second granddaughter. And now we have a tangible, constant reminder that there will be a baby in that room. (Don't worry, we will have the mattress in place before the baby is actually sleeping there.) Sure there was already some random baby items in there, but we've also been using the room to store random boxes in that had yet to discover a home of their own. Now, there is a place for the baby to sleep as well as the old dresser I had used that my parents brought in at the same time as the crib. Thus, it looks quite a bit more like a nursery than a mostly empty room we kept a few things in that we might need when we have a baby someday. Instead, it is becoming steadily clearer that "someday" is looming right around the corner. Right quick. Boy, howdy.

Addendum: To answer a few comments, here's a picture of the dresser to the right:

Also, New Orleans was interesting. I had driven through the outskirts of town a few months ago and saw a lot of storm damage. But this time I had to go through some of the inner city to get to the French Quarter, and many neighborhoods looked completely abandoned and were just crumbling. But there was also a lot of construction going on in some parts of the area that are seeing renewal.

Finally, why can't girls like G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Star Wars (not to mention all kinds of video games)? It's not really fair to confine them to boring toys like Strawberry Shortcake and Polly Pockets.