After thinking about things a lot yesterday and talking them over with Paul and his mom over sandwiches after my appointment, I made the executive decision to go with a neutral nursery. I was already leaning towards a neutral color palette (if you know me, this comes as no real surprise.) So this allows us to move forward with the nursery planning, which means wall colors can be picked so we can paint before having the new carpet put in. We’re hoping to have the carpet done by early or mid-April.

I came home from school this afternoon with a mission in mind. I wanted to go to Target and Kohl’s to see what bedding options were available in-store vs the myriad options online. Paul was game to look at baby stuff at Target, and expand our fledgling registry.

So off we went to Target. Paul happily took charge of the scanner gun thingie and was scanning baby products willy-nilly. (I had some clean-up to do online when we got home…) But he was interested in the options available – and was surprisingly conversant in the language of baby gear. I guess he has been listening to my babbling for the last 2 months.

Paul was very happy (as was I) to get our hands on the car seat for my car and really check it out. We’re both confident in my researched choice (a Graco MyRide 65) and happier now to have seen it in person. No one seems to carry our stroller/carrier combo in-store, but that’s OK.

We cruised all the baby aisles, scanning little bits and pieces – with Paul pulling stuff of the shelves to ask me what on earth it was for or why one would want one option over another for some items. It was really great to be picking stuff out for our baby and talking about various options. (Altho honestly, I have no idea why one uses baby oil…)

When we got to the bedding aisle, my suspicions were confirmed: we don’t want a “set” that someone else has packaged up and named. They’re too expensive and a little to precious for my tastes. We decided to put together our own crib set with pieces from several themes, all with a brown, green, blue, beige color scheme. So without further ado, here’s the nursery so far: (click the pics for a better look!)

	The baby’s convertible crib in Distressed Black
	A MALM dresser from IKEA in black-brown from Mama & Daddy’s bedroom. Rails will be installed on top so it can be a changing table too.
	The comforter for the crib – not that it will get much/any use in the crib, but it sets the tone for the rest of the room.
	Blankets that seemed to go with the colors & style of the comforter. The front blanket there is the same patter as the reverse of the comforter.
	More blankets. I love the ones that say BABY all over them!
	Bumper option #1
	Bumper option #2.

It feels really good to have that settled. Now we can work on picking wall color(s) this weekend. No idea if we’re gonna do one or two colors – I’m thinking one, but that’s mostly because I’m feeling lazy. But I really don’t think the baby will care if there’s more than one color on the walls.

Kohl’s was a bust for anything other than OMG cute baby clothes on OMG OMG OMG sale and clearance. Paul and I were both showing each other cute sets, most of which ended up having monkeys on the bottoms. hee! I’ll go back to Kohl’s sometime to set up a registry there so that if nothing else I can get a good coupon to use later in the summer. Most places (I’ve heard) give good coupons and discounts for registry participants – especially on unpurchased items after the due date of the baby. We’ve got a Kohl’s gift card laying around, so I’ll wanna use that with whatever discounts I can snag!

It turned into a long evening, but we finished up with BBQ at Famous Dave’s and discussion of the world we’re bringing this kid into. (Heavy conversation for BBQ if ya ask me…) It was great to spend the time with Paul doing baby stuff. I’m looking forward to doing more!