Home stretch (or close to it)

Last Thursday was my 33-week doctor's appointment for Evan and as usual it was a "no news=good news" visit. I keep saying this, but I cannot believe how fast this pregnancy has gone by compared with Claire's. The weekly visits start next Thursday.

I also can't believe how much less prepared we are for his arrival than we were for hers. I thought we were fairly slack about her (didn't make it to the childbirth classes, didn't install her car seat until the day before I went into labor, never packed a hospital bag), but that doesn't hold a candle to this. We have done NOTHING to get ready for him.

Part of it's that we fortunately have nothing to buy, since everything except crib sheets and clothes was gender-neutral. (Thanks to grandparents and hand-me-downs, Evan is already outfitted for the first year of life. I'll get around to the crib sheets eventually.)

Part of it's that everything from the bouncer to the breast pump is lent out right now, though I guess we'll round it all up in a few weeks. But not having all that stuff in front of us as a visual reminder does, I think, make us sort of less conscious that we're about to do the baby thing all over again.

And part of it's that we're in limbo with the house being on the market -- there's still the chance, slimmer though it grows by the day, that we'll have moved by the time Evan's born. I'm not about to do any special nursery prep just to take it down while I'm still pregnant. Assuming we're still in this house when he's born, our plan is to keep Claire in her room, but move the glider back to the "extra" room in our master suite. That's where Evan will be sleeping (as Claire did, in Matt's old cradle) for probably several months.

I think we moved Claire into her own room at about six or eight weeks, but honestly, as long as I'm still nursing several times a night, it makes more sense to have the baby closer to us. (There's a pocket door between the rooms, so we don't hear every little noise.) And I really really want to avoid buying another crib for the small period of time in which they might both need one.

There are two schools of thought on this -- some people keep their kids in cribs for quite awhile, and others go ahead and move them into beds (or mattresses on the floor, which is probably the route we'll go) fairly young, around 18 or 20 months. There are obvious pros and cons to each but right now I'm leaning toward the latter. We'll see how it plays out.

I can hardly believe how much I've already forgotten about having a newborn. I am seriously going to have to relearn everything I knew last year about breastfeeding and sleep "training" (I hate that term, but for lack of a better one ...). This is what I get for not doing a baby book or really keeping any kind of journal!

Fortunately I have had many conversations with some other first-time moms who had babies between Claire and Evan (Sonya, Libba, Meg, this means you) about what worked with Claire and now I'm hoping these moms will refresh me on my own advice. Ridiculous. How do parents who wait three or four years between kids remember anything whatsoever? Or does it all miraculously come back to you? Or does it turn out you're always just flying by the seat of your pants?