Secondly, I think we are finally ready for this kid. I've had everything except for his bed done for quite a while. But the bed caused some thinking for me. See, Miriam still sleeps in the crib and doesn't act like she's trapped in there, so I would like to keep her in there for longer. But I also remember that Miriam grew out of her bassinette superfast, so I wasn't sure if we'd have time to transfer both kids to their respective beds. I decided to get a cradle instead, thinking that it would be big enough to hold Eli for enough time for Miriam to transfer out of the crib on her own timetable. I looked on ksl.com and at Kid to Kid and other places and never found one that I liked at a price I was willing to pay. Remember, I'm a cheapskate. So I was telling my mom about my thoughts when she offered the cradle that she rocked five of her six kids in. She got it when Nathan was little and they were expecting Erin for the same reasons that I have wanting one now. So when I was home at Thanksgiving, I took a gander at it and decided it would be perfect. Mom and dad brought it here on Christmas when they made a spontaneous trip to visit Kelsey. It has since been sitting in the basement with me thinking that I just need to wash this down and sand it so that Brent can paint it. And I just kept thinking that. Finally I went down and washed it and sanded it. I don't think I sanded it enough, but I washed twenty five years of garage grime off of it. I also figured out how to reproduce a non-standard sized cradle mattress without utilizing the twenty five year old foam. No dust mites on my watch! Last week Brent hauled it up and onto the back porch when he carefully laid out some newspapers under and started to paint it. The first coat was spray paint and done in the virtual darkness. Miriam stood at the window and watched in fascination. The next day when Brent got home from work, she was not going to let him paint without her help. So Miriam got to paint. And she loved it. Brent had decided the second coat would be regular brush paint what with the round bars causing difficulty with the spray paint angle, and Miriam threw herself into the project with reckless abandon, holding a brush in each hand and layering on the paint like nobody's business, the whole time talking about how she was helping Daddy paint Eli's bed white. The newspapers only made it so that there is now a clean square amongst all of the white splatter on the porch. The resulting paint job has some cracks due to my not sanding and a lot of lumps due to her effective can-to-brush-to-cradle techniques. Brent said he got most of the paint he used off of the areas she took charge of. She stayed focused and energized the whole time and had to be pulled away to let the coat dry. Even as she jumped on the trampoline, she kept a close eye on the cradle to make sure it was okay. She went out the next day and helped with the final spray paint coat, then was thrilled when it got brought inside to mama and daddy's room. She was a little disappointed we didn't put it in her room, but it'll be there soon enough. Probably too soon in fact for her liking. Either way, this little girl is so excited for Baby Eli to sleep in his brand new white bed and she is fully aware that without her, the bed wouldn't be ready for him. And I love the lumpy paint because it shows how much she already loves him. This is her first energetic swipes when I thought I'd better get a picture before she lost focus. I shouldn't have worried.
This is about fortyfive minutes later when she finally consented to take a break. I love the casually crossed ankles and the impish smile as she continues to dip the brushes. And I think Brent is pretty handsome too.
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