space

....there is a serious lack of it around here. I'm telling you. Christmas came along and with that came out all the decorations and the tree. We rearranged our place to accommodate it all, feeling like we were squeezing things into corners where they didn't actually fit. We shoved couches where they weren't the most convenient, placed chairs in front of doors (who needs to go out onto the porch in the winter anyway?) and for the umpteenth time, rifled through our belongings and skimmed them down in order to not feel quite so jam packed in here.

Then little Pito came, and with her came a baby bouncy chair, a carseat carrier, a handful of receiving blankets and clothes, diapers, wipes, and change pads lingering around the place. If things felt tight with Christmas, Pito's cargo made us feel darn right claustrophobic.

So, yesterday being Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, Ryan and I looked at each other and said, "Christmas is over. Let's get rid of the decorations." And with little hesitation, we packed it all up, shoved it all back in the boxes from whence it came a month ago, and squeezed it back into the corners of our storage closet.

We've decided that the Christmas tree spot is now going to be a Plava play-zone. She has been in need of a place for her books and toys for some time and was so excited about it that she started calling it a "playground". It's working out. We have begun to not even use the carseat carrier. In the car it stays - heavy, bulky, awkward - why do people like those things again? I suppose we're still in the sleepy newborn phase with Pito. Maybe when she's older and wake-up-able it will change.... then again, maybe not. She'll be heavier then, and that much more difficult to lug around in a carrier.

So now, our home is feeling a little less packed. We're breathing a little lighter. Our walls and corners are not quite as jammed with things.

Yay for space! Yay for room to breathe! Aaaaaaah.