One of the things that bummed me out when I was pregnant, and when Niko was a newborn, is that I didn’t get to actively participate in the pornographic glut of OMG NURSERY PLANNING!!!!!EVLENTYTWELVE!!!!1! We were living in a 1 bedroom apartment, we KNEW it was temporary, and most of our stuff was still in boxes in the middle of the floor and it was awful and depressing and I felt like we were living in a filth hole the entire time.
In an ideal world, Nesko would have gotten a job managing the building and we would have moved into the pent house suite which had an elevator, and life would have been GOOD. I loved that location SO MUCH and would NOT mind moving back to Edgewater at all, even though the neighborhood used to be REALLY dicey, as evidenced by the four deadbolts and two chains on the front door, and our fridge which was labelled as property of the CHA.
Instead, we moved to a two flat that Nesko’s family owns, which is in Albany Park in a pretty cool neighborhood, and is way way bigger. Ironically, it had a big horrible leak in the ceiling JUST LIKE THE PREVIOUS PLACE, but this one has never dripped somebody else’s poop water on me while I was using the toilet, and also the leak was, you know, FIXED. Although our ceiling is currently still taped up green board that hasn’t been plastered or painted yet but WHATEVER, we are GETTING THERE. We moved here a year ago, when Niko was 5 months old, and it was such luxury to have a bedroom JUST FOR HIM, painted in colors FOR HIM, where we could put his stuff instead of tripping over it. He started sleeping a lot better in a crib in his own room, which meant WE started sleeping better as well.
I flirted with the idea of painting his room pale yellow and pale blue, to match this totally adorbs coat hook I got at a thrift store forever ago, which has 2 pale yellow stars and 2 pale blue moons. I kept half an eye out for coordinating rugs and bedding and stuff, but while at Babies R Us there were these canvas bins on sale for really cheap, and we got some that where green sage and some that were brown, and we painted his room to match. It looks really good, and there’s monkey-themed stuff that pretty much matches those colors, so it’s worked out well. But I dug out our paper towel holder this morning, and it was in a box with the star-and-moon hooks, and I felt a little nostalgic for the pale colored nursery that might have been.
I think the colors we picked will transition to childhood a bit better, though.
What’s that, you say? You want pictures?
Here you go!
You can see the bins– with his toys all put away– right here. You will notice, also, the toddler right there undoing the work I did. He’s great that way.
That’s a hand-embroidered wall hanging done by a friend of ours. It’s utterly, utterly awesome and so is she.
We got these vinyl wall decals (they peel off and reposition easily and aren’t STICKY thus can’t lose their stick) at Babies R Us. We don’t quite have enough of them, and I wish I could get JUST the circles. Niko points out the circles and calls them “buhbuh” (bubbles) and points at the monkeys and calls them “muhnmuhn” (“majmun,” which is Srpski for monkey). They are the first things he pointed at.
We got his crib used for something like $25. The woman selling it to us was worried that it was covered in teeth marks and nobody would want it. Niko has added his own teeth marks to it. Every time I see someone on Craigslist selling a used crib for $400, I want to reach through the screen and slap them senseless. The shelves full of toys were all book shelves we already had, most of them purchased used for $20 or so. They aren’t the best quality, but they should survive his childhood at least.
The dresser was free, as it belonged to my parents. It’s a really nice looking 3-drawer dresser that needs some work (the back of it is loose and the drawers stick a bit, totally fixable) with awesome pulls. The changing bad has a tacky bottom, and the cover just happens to match our green paint. The canvas bin at the end holds diapers, wipes, and jammies and keeps things both contained and out of Niko’s reach. If we put the wipes on the dresser top, he can reach them, pull them down, and pull each one out.
This hanging closet organizer will be totally useful when Niko stops pulling everything off of the hanging shelves. Until then, it’s good to have.
This hanging organizer is supposed to go over a door, but our apartment is ~~vintage~~ with ~~vintage~~ doors, which are apparently thicker than modern doors. So I wedged the hooks into a random piece of paneling in the closet. That’s not the point of this photo, though. No! The point is– what the hell, there is a window in the closet. Why is there a window in the closet? Oh, Chicago apartments. You so crazy.
Out of order, comes chaos.
Out of toddlers, comes chaos.
It took me about half an hour to pick up all his toys in here, the dining room, the kitchen, and the living room, and get them all put away. Nesko had him outside playing while I did this.
I don’t think I even need to say that it took him less than two minutes to undo all that I did.
LOOK UPON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR.
