it's the little things

When you walk into my house you'll notice a few things. Little things. Child-sized shelving, an area rug with pillows instead of a dining room table, a book sling attached to the wall at baby-height, and a twin-sized floor bed alongside a cushy rug. 

It's all in preparation for the day, someday soon, when Finn will be able to move himself around the house on his own. Patrick and I have been working diligently - a little here, a little there - trying to get it all done before The Day arrives.

Notice Finn's "Changing Chipmunk." I suspect he thinks it's some kind of kitty ... but this kitty lets him put his mouth ALL over it - pure bliss, if you're five months old.

One thing we've done is re-vamp Finn's room, changing a few key things to transition the space from a nursing/movement area to a friendly place for a scooting/crawling baby. Since we finally got an area rug in our living space, we no longer needed the movement mat per se - so we took his changing area set-up from our room and are now using the old movement mat for a floor changing area in his room. I knew it was time to move the changing area to the floor because Finn was starting to be quite acrobatic in his movements - best to be on the floor while practicing such moves, and not on top of a dresser!

We got rid of his first floor bed, a crib-sized annoyingly springy mattress, and got him a twin-sized Sultan Florvag. Big improvement. He's now able to nap on his floor bed (although he still prefers the Moby!) and I can lay down with him and catch a nap, too. Since getting the new mattress, Finn is going to sleep in his room at night. We still co-sleep after about 10 p.m., as he wakes briefly to feed around then, but this set-up seems to be working well.

There are still a lot of pesky details to be taken care of: finding a place for the books not currently in rotation (we keep out four books at any given time), covering outlets, finding a daytime spot for his bedtime beeswax candle, etc.

Sigh. It seems like he was born just yesterday. However, I must admit that this growing up is fun. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I can't wait for him to start moving. The cats, I'm sure, will not be so thrilled.