I Better Drink More Water

I find myself crying a lot lately, and the arrival of the changing table was just such an occasion. I was certain it wasn’t going to get here in time, but alas, the in-laws made the 2-hour trek to our house this last weekend to bring it and help with some projects (Thank you mother nature for making it snow and knocking down a tree in our front yard. That really was what we needed right now!). I was sooooo excited to finally have it, and when my husband and his dad carried the box in, rushed to see it. As the box didn’t have a color picture on it, someone asked, “It’s white, right?” To this, my father-in-law replied, “No, it’s some sort of wood color.” I know my face showed my disappointment, but my husband gave me that “don’t you dare say anything” look and said, “It doesn’t really matter, does it?” I know he was thinking, “Look, they just spent all this time looking for one of these, purchasing it, and driving it here. And, we just carried this heavy box in the house. And, there is a freaking tree laying in our front yard. And, we need to install an electrical outlet in the fireplace (a whole other story).” And, after all, I’m the one who always lectures him about acting ungrateful when people get him gifts he doesn’t really like. So, I dug down deep to summon all the grace I could and squeaked out an, “It’s really nice”. I really just wanted to cry. Of course it mattered! I felt so unknown. They’d seen the crib—white. I’d sent two pages of pictures of tables I liked—all white. I’d told them—white. White, white, white!!! But there it was. Sitting in a box in my living room—some sort of wood color. I hid in the bathroom until I cried it out and had time to recover. Later, the mom-in-law and I went looking for baskets for it. She asked if I wanted to return it and look for a white one, but by this point I felt so defeated about the whole thing that I just suggested we look at baskets and see if we find anything we like. Fortunately, the baby super store had some adorable baskets on sale (white, white, white) that we tried on one of the cherry colored tables, and they looked pretty cute. This made me start thinking that if I’d made every attempt to make my desires known, and they’d looked extensively for the “perfect” table and chosen the one they did, that the wood one was the one I was suppose to have. I acquiesced to keeping, and liking, the wood one (as long as it had white baskets). After all, “cottage” style is eclectic, right? Well, as we lay in bed that night, my husband had the audacity to ask, “My mom wants to know if you really like it, or if you want a white one?” I wanted to say, “I wanted a white one for the last 6 months, and I just spent all day convincing myself to like this one. After getting the eye lecture and making it perfectly clear you didn’t want to exchange it, how could you even ask me that??!!!!!” So, I gave the only answer that wouldn’t end up in a fight, and said, “It really doesn’t matter.” This, of course, led me to tear up again. Fortunately his super power is the ability to fall asleep in 10 sec. flat, so I didn’t have to explain myself. Well, everything always looks better in the morning, and I really did convince myself that I could like the “wood of some sort”. And, that evening my husband very excitedly put the table together (note: putting things together makes men feel important). My father in law commented that he picked that one because it had wheels. It did indeed look quite nice all put together. I stood up to give it a little pretend try….and….it was far too tall for my short self to reach comfortably over the side…you guessed it…escape to cry again. So, we took the wheels off (removing the pieces for which the table was chosen), which lowered it to only mildly uncomfortable. Anyhow, yesterday I go to fill the baskets, confident with how nice it fits in the room, and notice that there is already a scratch on the wood from one of the baskets being pulled out. So, now my wood colored, mildly uncomfortable, changing table is scratched!!! Cry, cry, cry, and cry. This baby had better be born soon, or I’m going to be quite dehydrated…