Crib assembly: Not for the faint of heart

Today its snowing like a beast, so we thought hey, what a great day to clean out the guest room, nursery and assemble the cribs.  Sounds like a decent idea for a Sunday afternoon, right?  I'll start by saying, we had NO idea what we were in for.  None.  They just say "assembly required"...they forget to tell you that you might need IV fluids and a 8 hour nap after you've completed said task.  If you're about to build your baby's crib, drink heavily prior to attempting this task...unless you are the expectant mother (of course).  Liquor up your husbands ladies, trust me, they'll thank you for it.  

From the get go M was dreading this task.  He's about as un-skilled as it gets when it comes to assembling things.  This proved to be no exception.  We got all the pieces out and made sure we had everything, then the fun began!  We quickly realized we were in over our heads.  Between M's impatience, the lack of labeled parts and my big belly not letting me do much, crib #1 was a JOB.  We fumbled through the first several parts and eventually finally got the hang of things.  It took us three hours to assemble this poor bed!  

Here's M working on one of the sections I couldn't reach.  I love this pic because it totally looks like he gave up, I swear he's just finishing up the screws on that side :)

At this point it was do or die.  Crib-2 M&A-0

Crib one COMPLETE!!!

We did it!  Crib one was finally fully assembled!  Now did we move on to crib two or call it good?  Even though we had been through hades and back, we decided to tough it out and move onto crib two.  I mean, if we didn't at least start crib two, who knows when we would have attempted it again. We couldn't give up.  We just wanted it DONE.  Much to our surprise, crib two's assembly went MUCH smoother!  We had crib two together in less than an hour and a half.  Woop woop!  We're now available for hire if anyone you know is assembling a crib anytime soon ;)

Here's M zooming through crib two's construction as Nellie supervises

Would you look at that?!?!  M tightening the screw on crib two.  DONE!!!  Two assembled cribs right down the hall from my bedroom.  OMG.

Charlie couldn't stand that we kept him out all day.  As soon as we let him in, he started exploring.  Apparently cribs are at the top of his "love" list too.  

So we got to check off one of the most difficult parent-to-be tasks, EVER.  As difficult a task as it was, after it was done we laid on the floor, in between our babies cribs and just smiled.  In just a few short months this room will hold our sweet twins.  This room will see lots of sleep deprivation, lots of poopy diapers and most importantly, lots of love and laughter.  Despite the pain in the ass that it was, it was a right of passage you never forget :)  We are hoping to get the changing table and glider in soon...I believe both require assembly.  Oh the joys of parenthood!

The Tale of the Christmas Tree Eating Cat

Charlie is our "middle child".  We got Elvis and about 8 months later we decided it would be fun to have a "brother" for Elvis.  Elvis is ridiculously mellow and thought he'd enjoy a kitten in the house.  We went to the rescue to look at kittens and we saw a sweet little-malnourished and thin-but SPUNKY little guy.  He was so underweight and gaunt, but he had so much energy!  Naturally, we fell for him.  The next week, I brought him home.  We named him Charlie and our adventure with the crazy cat began :)  

From day uno, Charlie was a handful.  When I say handful, I actually mean two handfuls.  M was in the police academy, so I had to help Charlie adjust by my lonesome.  He slept on my face (literally) when he actually did sleep and the rest of the night he laid in the crook of my neck curled up with whiskers in my face, purring.  All.night.long.  I couldn't kick him out of our room yet though, because our sweet mellow Elvis apparently didn't like our idea of giving him a friend.  Elvis was pretty vicious toward baby Charlie for a couple months.  Now, they are the best of friends, but then, we were sure Elvis was going to off our new addition so I suffered through sleepless nights hoping this little skinny waif would calm down.  

Four years later, no dice.  He's STILL that same spunky wild crazy needy little cat.  We love him for it though.  We got him in August when he was 12 weeks old and when Christmas rolled around that year we realized we had a problem.  We put the tree (3-4 ft fake) up and Charlie ate the needles.  We moved the tree, but as you know if you have cats, they can get to anything :)  We didn't worry much until he started eating ornaments.  A glass ball fell off the tree and shattered.  Charlie ate the shards.  No I'm not kidding.  We took him to the vet and they didn't see any issues with his stomach, so we just watched him.  He had a lot of fake Christmas tree needles in his hairballs/vomit/poop, but no blood and no sign of trauma.  We shrugged it off.  When he wasn't eating tree needles and ornaments, he was napping on the tree skirt.  We couldn't (and still can't) get this Christmas loving cat away from the tree!

Every year when the tree goes up, Charlie is right there supervising the whole operation.  He plays in the tree and ornament boxes and bats around any loose tissue paper.  We usually put the tree up in mid-November and take it down in mid-Jan.  Charlie never leaves the tree's side.  Ever.  Last night we found him perched in his usual spot, on the window sill behind the tree, chewing on the fake needles.  He was nice enough to look up for me so I could get a seemingly innocent picture of him.  He's a riot!  Thankfully, he has no interest in chewing on the light strands, we'd really have a problem then. 

See, told ya ;)

*True Story*  Right after we got Charlie, I was talking to M (he was in the police academy) on my brand new (like 3 day old) cell phone.  It was plugged in to the outlet to charge and I was laying on my bed.  All of the sudden the phone died.  I thought I got a lemon.  After further investigation, I sat up and the phone cord came with me.  You know cell phone chargers don't have *that* long of charge cords.  Sweet little innocent Charlie had chewed through the power cord.  Luckily, that was the only time he chewed any kind of electrical cord...but at that point I knew we were in for trouble!

EDIT:  As I was finishing up this post I saw big brother Elvis saunter downstairs and head straight for the tree.  He looked at it for a second, rolled around on the tree skirt gazing at the lights from under the tree and jumped right on Charlie's favorite window sill, then started chewing on the tree.  Crazy cats we have.

He starts out much like Charlie.  Sweet innocent kitty face.

Then its all over.  I'm shocked we even have needles on our tree! 

Hope you and your pets/kids are enjoying this Christmas season!