Simply living to live simply

Something that amazes me is how little we ever need for a new baby. Yes we will need diapers and yes we need clothing, but there isn't much else that we need. Diapers (cloth or disposable) are a given addition to our monthly expenses and clothing usually comes from Freecycle or tagsales since I always get rid of infant clothing once the babe has grown out of it. The things we need are patience, sleep, and a whole lotta faith! If we take things day by day or even moment by moment, it all ususally works out fine.
Our house is relatively small, around 1100 square feet with one bathroom. We have a ton of what we call dead storage space. What I mean by that is we have a 2 car garage with a loft, a basement and another basement type room that we call the "pool room" since the pool chemicals and such are stored there. This space isn't extremely useful to our every day living. While we store totes of clothing and linens in the basement and tools and outdoor toys in the garage, we can't store small kitchen appliances in the loft or basement or even shoes or jackets there because we need them within arms reach on a daily basis. Luckily, I am not a decorator and do not really care what my house looks like so Jesse has taken the liberty of putting shelving up on every wall and worked on our entry ways to make a small closet for our shoes in the side entrance and hooks for jackets and bags in the other. It isn't pretty or trendy, but it is definitely useful. That has been the key to living more simply for me. Not worrying how it looks so much as how it works.
Some people have asked, "Where are you going to fit another baby?". Well, our bedroom has 2 toddler beds, a queen sized air mattress, a crib and two dressers. This is the first time in 11 years we are using a crib too since we usually co-sleep. We have a tote on wheels under the crib for the clothing for the baby and there are totes under the toddler beds too. No- no closets in the room.
When I grew up I had my own very large room with a huge closet and a dresser. All for just little old me. And the closet and dresser were full of clothing. I never realized what a luxury it was when I had it. The way we live now, I could fit 2/3 of my family in that bedroom!
The thing is, it works for us. We have scaled back- a lot- especially for me from my stuff-filled middle class upbringing. It takes a lot of work, time, and creativity. But it has broadened my perspective of how things can work and helped me see what limits I was placing just for some idea of how something is supposed to look. We are all the better for it.

Hypnobabies

I have been having such a hard time this pregnancy trying to positively envision the cesarean birth. The last time I was up the whole night before doing breathing exercises to try and relax, only to just about make myself sick.

This time I know what will happen and I have been very anxious about it. I posted about it on a few message boards and got a lot of support. Someone suggested the book Birthing from Within and while it is wonderful, it just wasn't working for me. Someone also suggested a Hypnobabies CD set call - My Successful Cesarean Birth. I just started them this week and it has helped me let go of so much fear already. It made me realize just how much tension I have been holding inside. I feel like I can finally breath deeply again and I am even starting to look forward to the birth that is less than two weeks away. That in itself has made it a good purchase. Let's see how it does for the birth!