My sister called during her drive home last night and we had a few minutes to catch up before she walked through her front door. After that, it was pretty much a lost cause.

“Do you hear that?” she asked as my niece shrieked in the background. “She’s saying, ‘no bathtime, no!’ Oh lord, now she’s running naked through the living room.”

The most excitement we have around here is when the cat throws up at three a.m. and we have to guess which piece of furniture she’s decorating.

“Oh baybee… oh baybee,” crooned Ella, settled in the tub, as my sister tried to dig up information on their crib. We’re having a hard time selecting a brand, and I’m taking all recommendations. I have no problem preventing my sister from assisting during bathtime to achieve this goal, though I don’t think she minded terribly.

After several hours at Ikea and Target, and several more reading up on makes and models, we’re struggling. Maybe we’re overthinking things, which seems to be the trend with me at the moment; I’ve been concerned that the nursery doesn’t get much light, and as a result we will have a somber little cave baby. But then the cat found a sunbeam there over the weekend and plopped down in it, blissfully unaware of the days to come in which a streaking toddler will send her scrambling for refuge under the bed, where she will undoubtedly throw up.

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The guest room closet of our apartment has always been the home for homeless things. Non-seasonal clothes, wrapping paper, tennis rackets, framed diplomas, an old typewriter, wall-mounted wine glass racks, the box that (household appliance) came in… If an object doesn’t clearly belong anywhere, it gets sucked into this black hole.

But now someone is moving in to this room, which means all of our stuff has to find new lodgings, get stored, or get tossed. In fact, just about everything must come out of the guest room to make room for a crib and eight tons of diapers.

(An aside: we were at a dinner party last night with two set of new parents, both of which lifted up their baby and smelled its rear to assess the need for a new diaper. Now – I still remind my in-laws of the day they left me with a locked-and-loaded infant nephew, so you know I am not looking forward to this activity, but SO HELP ME I WILL DO IT. That said, I am still hopeful that someone will invent a diaper that changes color when it’s “full,” or perhaps emits a soft beeping sound. If we could make this diaper seal in the odor too, and maybe even change itself, that would be great.)

So our apartment exploded into piles of stuff yesterday, and we have worked diligently to restore order. I volunteered for the task of reorganizing the bookshelves while Renate boxed up items for storage. Inspired by the Weisz’ reorg of late ’07, as well as the ridiculously engrossing ‘Bookshelf of the Day’ site, I set to work.

Entirely organized by section, occasionally by spine height and sporadically by last name.

The guest room has improved:

Now – it may appear that we simply stuffed things into boxes (which we did), but my parents have graciously offered to take in these boxes until we move into a larger place. If they’re not careful we may punch holes in one of them and ship along a watchful, sullen surprise.

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