"Come and knock on our door..."

Rudy and Marley are roommates now! Hooray! Two's company. It happened sooner than I had planned, but I am so spontaneous and go with the flow that it was no problem.

That's not true at all. The part about spontaneity. While it's true that being a mom has simultaneously sharpened my "grab that kid to prevent injury - NOW" reflexes and strengthened my "we're just going to sit on the floor and play with these pom-poms for the next forty minutes" mindfulness, I'm still a planner. I make lists of things to do. My days are scheduled in two-hour increments around meals, naps, errands, and classes and practices that I'm either running or bring Beanie to. And oh the doctors' appointments. For my rickety kids and my Alzheimer's (there is no adjective for this, which is annoying) mom.

I planned for Marley and Rudy to share a room around the time that Rudy turned one. And I want them to be roommates while they're young. Once they become sullen, dramatic, angst-y adolescents, we'll see, but for now, I want them to share their toys AND their space. I want them to talk about silly things at night and then be pals first thing in the morning. I shared a room with my sister Danielle until I went to college. Good, good times. (You know it, Danielle! As good as SOUP! See what I mean? We have inside jokes. Although really anyone who knows Danielle knows that she loves soup.)

Anyhow, Rudy started crawling last Monday, and in a matter of days she was demonstrating that we need to RE-child-proof our home. I was going to have to, for example, move paper and crayons off the bottom shelves of the bookcase/temporary hutch in our kitchen. And, I know this is completely uninteresting to everyone but me, but when I move one thing around in my home, it sets off a chain reaction of other organizational acrobatics. I once actually drew a recycling-type triangle to attempt to illustrate both my genius for and my complete satisfaction from rearranging various baskets, blankets, and other miscellany in three different rooms this spring without leaving a single item out. All items were in more efficient places, and my chart made this clear. I also kept saying things like, "See? Isn't this awesome?" to be even clearer about my mad skills. Todd was unimpressed. I should really be a Container Store consultant.

Moving Rudy into Marley's bedroom meant that I would be transforming the nursery back into an office, but I also wanted it to be a sort of Quiet-Time-Playroom with books, drawing supplies, and a kid's table for Bean, and eventually, Toot. I told Marley that once Rudy moved in with her, that the room across the hall would become her very own library. She was pumped, which made my nerd-heart swell with pride. Especially since I sometimes despair at the state of non-text-message reading that occurs after age fourteen. (One of the practice SAT essays I scored for my prep class this summer referenced "Broadway shows such as Shakespear [sic]" Good God.

So I spent last week rearranging Beanie's room and the result is what you see above. A bed and a crib in a cozy, warmly-lit space. Notice the freshly bathed baby chilling out just before bedtime.

But even more spectacular is the library, which inspired Marley to curl up and "read" in her sweet little chair the other day. I was working at Todd's childhood writing desk, and when I turned to glance at Bean, there she was. I nearly fell down the stairs rushing to get the camera before she moved on to her next thing, like making maps for a hunt while dressed in a tutu and a pirate hat or cramming stuffies into any one of several bags and strolling around the house to be their doctor or teacher or mommy. I was quick. And this picture makes me so ridiculously happy. Bean chilling out with her books like this is what I pictured when I was thinking about this room. It is exactly the sort of thing I was planning.