Bye bye cot, hello room

There are some milestones, on my last baby's road to childhood, that I get sentimental about. Things that make me all nostalgic and wet-eyed, thinking pensively oh we'll never travel this road again and how fast she is growing up *cue slightly self-indulgent melancholy sigh*.

One that I was not at all sentimental about, but rather impatiently waiting for (comeonecomeonCOMEON) was C's agreement that we could remove the cot from her room, and "give it to someone with a baby".

Since C was born, her smallish room has held:

a) a single bed
b) a cot
c) a leather rocker / feeding chair
d) a chest of drawers
e) an enormous pine bookcase that holds G and my sci fi, fantasy and history book collection (we are short on options for housing our many books, and they breed in the night - at least that's the only explanation that makes sense *mumble if you don't look at my visa card and its regular donations to booktopia /mumble*).

The cot, and an untidy and always-spilling plastic tub of soft toys that was wedged in between the bookcase and the cupboard, meant that the built-in wardrobes only opened halfway. The inside of that wardrobe, as well as the storage tubs under the single bed, were ... ahhhhh. A maelstrom of confusion might be accurate. A perfect storm of mess. A tsunami of junk. A horror of ... well, you get the idea.

C started opting to nap in the bed rather than the cot in November, and has been mostly sleeping nights in the bed since Christmas, with occasional demands to be put into the cot at random intervals, which inevitable resulted in her banging her head again the bars and wailing for me at 2am or somesuch time. She hasn't slept in the cot for over two weeks now, but I had given her my assurance that the cot wouldn't be removed until she said she was ready.

Today, she did.

When we arrived home from our morning out, G dismantled the cot and took it out to the garage to await collection, and I got going. I have been desperate to get this room functional again and four hours of pretty exhausting work later - it's done.

So I got into the cupboard and threw out 5 bags of stuff - 3 rubbish, 2 for charity - and rearranged everything so it's easy to get at stuff now.

I pulled out all the crap under the bed and got 3 bags of stuff for charity from there, then rearranged everything.

I cleaned the top of the chest of drawers and made room for a mini-library of C's favourite books, so we can sit in her room at nights for bedtime stories, a much more peaceful alternative to doing them in the lounge room.

I brought C's toy stove and food toys in from the open area, where they have been a clutter magnet and not terribly easy to use, and set them up in her room.

And once I'd finished, and G had vaccuumed and dusted, the room reveal had all three kids jumping with excitement at the SPACE and the fact that they could play the trains on the floor again without having to pack them up every 10 minutes!

I'm no designer - I have no knack for decorating, and my house (and the kids' rooms) aren't magazine-pretty or super neat, ever. But now C's room is comfortable and functional, it feels clean and welcoming and I can get to things again - and so, even more importantly, can she.

So I'm tired, but extremely satisfied with what we accomplished today.