The Wardrobe

Mr Robinson and I have been together for nearly eight years and it’s safe to say that DIY is not our strong point. Before now, our only endeavour into the world of flat-packed furniture was a bookshelf: this descended into several arguments and was frustrating for all involved. This week we were faced with a new challenge in the form of a flat-packed wardrobe, kindly bought by my in-laws, for Baby Robinson.

 

It’s very much the truth to say -and I strongly doubt he’ll mind me saying it- that Mr Robinson is NOT a ‘manly man’. He doesn’t own a tool kit, he doesn’t have fabulous upper arm strength, and he does NOT enjoy DIY projects. That’s not to say he doesn’t have many positive attributes, it’s just that building things is never going to be something that features prominently on his CV. I’ll admit, this was something I was worried about when we ordered the wardrobe….

 

I was quite excited about the whole thing, I’d been waiting weeks to get a wardrobe for the baby, so I could begin nesting. Much to Mr Robinson’s dismay, I booked the early delivery slot and the lovely people at Argos knocked the door at 7.06am (on a Saturday – there was definite death glares from my husband).

 

The boxes were opened, the various pieces were assembled across the floor, we had acquired screwdrivers and a hammer, we had even checked everything against the booklet of instructions! It was all very positive until my desire to do things ‘my way’ kicked in. I’m honest enough to say that it wasn’t simply my nesting urge that was the problem: I have this issue whenever I watch someone struggling with a task that I, personally, would not find all that difficult. I don’t find building furniture a complicated process nor do I struggle with the strength to screw in nails, hammer things together etc.

 

In that moment I had a choice: I could either focus on how I wanted things to be done and likely find myself struggling to build a wardrobe by myself at 30 weeks pregnant OR I could try and support Mr Robinson in doing things his way. I’m slightly ashamed at how difficult a decision that was for me. In the end, I did end up having to do a considerable amount of work with the screwdriver and I did wake up from a nap to discover that virtually no progress to the wardrobe had been made. However, we got to the end of the build without any arguments and have a solid, new, wardrobe to show for it.

 

Nesting has finally begun, and Mr Robinson is entirely pleased with his own manly abilities. I’m just happy that I no longer have fifteen bags of baby clothes laid around the house.

Side note: we didn’t find Narnia.

 

Last Week

It’s been a very busy period for us and that can be stressful for anyone! Add in Easter, appointments that are pregnancy related, and moving to a new house and it all becomes a bit of a mess. Normally Easter isn’t a ‘big deal’ in our family because religion isn’t a key feature of our lives. I’m thoroughly Humanist in my views while other family members are religious to varying degrees. This year, however, my Mum decided that new traditions need to be made so that we can make loving memories when baby arrives. In this vain, we all had to decorate an egg for the first family Easter egg decorating competition [we won’t go into too much detail over the threat of not being fed dinner if you came without an egg].

 

Competition is probably not something my family does well. We each have a competitive streak that is mixed in with such large levels of empathy that we struggle not to feel bad that someone else had to lose. Everyone put in a lot of effort with their egg, but nobody really felt that their egg was the winner. I painstakingly created the aliens from Toy Story – do you know how hard it is to paint an egg without the paint just running off?! While Mr Robinson went for Harry, Ron and Hermione and labelled his ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Eggzkaban’. It was a tough competition, but Mr Robinson defeated the likes of Egg Sheeran to claim the Egg Decorating Cup [an Easter theme mug my Mum had found in the supermarket…].

It was a real high for our family to get through a day without someone crying or screaming. Unfortunately, happiness was short lived in the form of the Glucose Tolerance Test: a horrible little test used to determine whether you have Gestational Diabetes in your pregnancy. Obviously, GD can bring with it some complications for the baby so as a dutiful soon-to-be-Mother, I pushed down my anxiety and went along. I’m not going to give a full retelling of my experience because a) I’m pretty sure it isn’t the ‘normal’ experience based on how all the other women coped and b) I don’t want to scare anyone who still has to go through it. I will say that no food, slight dehydration and low blood pressure does NOT make it easy for veins to be found. The good new is we don’t have GD and I’m more than a little bit pleased about that.

 

The bad news is that the whole experience left me quite physically drained for the rest of last week: not ideal if you have to move home. Our new place is lovely: on initial inspection it came across as being ‘small’ but in terms of space it’s bigger in nearly every way. The ceilings are lower which is deceiving, and the kitchen is a definite downgrade, but the living spaces are far better. Most importantly, we now have garden space!!! My requirement for moving was to be closer to family, but Mr Robinson was quite keen for a garden to be acquired and I’m quite pleased that he pushed for that. I can now look out the window in our new place and envision our children playing in the snow or having water fights – that’s a long time away but it’s a nice fantasy.

 

There’s still plenty of unpacking to happen, some furniture to be built, places to be found for items that had previously been put into cupboards for ‘when we get our proper house’. I’ll soon to be up to my eyeballs in baby clothes and filling up photo frames but for now, I’m relaxing. We’re firmly in the third trimester and carrying heavy bags is NOT my job!