Hinckley Blog

I didn't actually cry myself to sleep last night.  I wanted to, very badly.  But before I let it happen I remembered that I am 266 days pregnant and that bursting into tears was likely an exaggerated response to a relatively minor difference of opinion.  Later came silent anxiety over why we were having a difference of opinion about paint color, and why we can't come up with a name other than Caboose, and whether such matters reveal any serious flaws in our spousal communication.  Later still came actual sleep.  Resolution on paint color is pending.  Resolution on Caboose's name is also pending, presumably, although I think it may not come up again until we're on our way to the hospital.

The painter is coming on Monday at 8:30 a.m. to paint the living room/office and the playroom.  This deadline means that yesterday I finally pulled out the paint samples I bought two weeks ago and put brushstrokes up on the walls.  When Rob got home last night, I had four options on the walls:  City Loft, Wall Street (both chosen, I believe, because as a native New Yorker the names subconsciously appeal to me), Antique Red, and Perfect Greige.  I had almost settled on Perfect Greige for the office and perhaps even for the wall above the chair rail in the playroom, because Perfect Greige is everything it sounds like.  Wall Street, which was my favorite paint swatch, proved way too dark for either a playroom or a largish office that is poorly lit and spends most of bathed in outside shade.  City Loft, as it turns out, is an okay, not overly stunning white.  Antique Red looks lovely on the swatch but looks more like Cherry Red on the wall.

Rob's assessment:  Perfect Greige is too light and somewhat bland.  Wall Street is perfect - dark and rich, just like the olive green walls he's loved so well in his upstairs office (which, come to think of it, were the subject of my last near-meltdown).  City Loft is an okay white.  Antique Red looks lovely on the swatch but looks more like Cherry Red on the wall.  Writing this in the light of day I now see that we actually agreed on 50 percent of the paint colors!  Glass at least half full!  But last night, I agonized over his dislike of Perfect Greige.  I thought about how many paint colors we have already in this house, and how I really would prefer navy blue cupboards in my kitchen but I can't have them because the walls are green (and also because we're not remodeling the kitchen right now and, come to think of it, if we were, repainting the walls would be a mere drop in the money pit).  I thought about how dark and gloomy the office would look painted in Wall Street, how it would clash with the black piano and dark wood end tables.  This is the part where we said goodnight and I rolled over and decided not to cry myself to sleep.

Today I went back to the paint store for more samples:  Spaulding Gray and Storm Cloud.  Spaulding Gray is just a shade darker than Perfect Greige.  Storm Cloud is a shade lighter than Wall Street.  I want to name paint colors for a living, because I really think that Wall Street looks more like a storm cloud and Storm Cloud is much cheerier than the name suggests.  I asked the paint store employees what white I should use, and they suggested either Snowbound or Pure White, since those tend to be the most popular.  There are precious few opportunities in this world to safely follow the crowd; why not take advantage of the places where we can?  Do you think we will raise our social standing if we have Pure White below the chair rail rather than City Loft?  I'm likely to veto Snowbound, because I hate snow and I'm afraid it might be a bad winter omen to put something on my walls that is named after winter storms.  Why I am not similarly vetoing Storm Cloud is not rational, but then again, women who have been pregnant for 266 days are not known for their detached, rational opinions and decisions.

After carefully examining today's paint colors, Rob offered the following:  "I love you more than paint colors.  Please choose what will make you happy."  And so I sat, indecisive, for several minutes before deciding that I'll make this decision in the morning.  In the meantime, I think our spousal communication is in pretty decent shape after all.

Yesterday I was reading People StyleWatch, which I absolutely never do, except for every month.  One page featured something called Vita-K, a serum that will cure puffy baggy eyes as well as those pesky dark circles.  I immediately ordered it from Amazon and then looked in the mirror and thought, "I can't wait to use my anti-wrinkle cream again."  See, you can't use anti-aging products when you're pregnant.  And then it occurred to me that perhaps one shouldn't need pre-natal vitamins AND anti-wrinkle cream on the same day in one's life.  Perhaps the need for anti-wrinkle cream is a clear indication that it's time to leave the baby-bearing stage of life.  Multiply and replenish the earth:  check.

I think my nose looks fat and I'm wondering if a new shade of lipstick would help.

I broke the cardinal rule of pregnancy, which is never, ever cut your hair.  In my defense, it was only bangs that I cut and, furthermore, I didn't actually cut them.  My Korean hair dresser Kimmie cut them and she says I look like a movie star.  Then again, I pay her to say things like that.

Caboose is still without a name or a room.  The room is slightly easier to resolve.  At 10:30 pm last night, Rob said to me, "We need to come up with a three week IKEA strategy."  He was at IKEA last Friday after work, bought several things, and spent several hours building two of those things last Saturday.  So we started discussing this weekend's IKEA trip, including returning two bookcases that we bought before accurately measuring the space in our family room.  They don't fit.  Meanwhile, the wall shelf and media cabinet he built last Saturday are still in the basement, because we're too tired to haul the completed pieces upstairs.  Fortunately, the missionaries are coming over for lunch on Saturday and when they say, "Is there anything we can do for you" we have our answer ready.  We'd ask our home teacher, but he's in his 80s.  The sweet man has already offered to come over and help out with the kids while I'm in labor.  Bless him.

By midnight, we were still discussing the IKEA strategy, only now it had moved to a complete reconsideration of room arrangement chez Lesan.  We've been thinking of installing Caboose in the room that has served as the guest room/Rob's office for the last few years.  I floated the idea of painting it something other than its current dark olive-ish green.  "Veto!" was Rob's response.  "This room has been a sanctuary lo these last few years, and the color cannot change!"  But it's such masculine space, I countered.  We can't put a baby girl in here.  "Matt and I need some masculine spaces in this house.  You girls can't paint everything pink." Moreover, Rob can't face painting one more room in the house, and he's not emotionally prepared to pay someone else to "ruin the office."

Rob thinks if we take out the desk and move the bookshelf to the back wall, there will be just enough space for a mini crib or pack and play; then we could put a rocker in between the guest bed and the mini crib.  I think that sounds ill-configured and I start to get weepy about my little girl having to live crammed into a guest room with olive green walls.  I realize that I'm weepy because it's midnight and I'm 36 weeks pregnant, which is to say that my feelings, while valid, are highly exaggerated.  It's a delicate balance really.  One we'll try hard to strike over the next few months as we navigate round four of late pregnancy/early postpartum emotions.  (Which reminds me that several months ago as we were falling asleep, Rob decided it would be funny to recite every postpartum conversation he anticipated us having - and did so with amazing accuracy).

We finally came to what I think sounds like a reasonable solution, one Rob floated and I vetoed months ago but which now sounds amazingly sane.  Matt will move into the guest room/office with masculine walls and his current room, which until 6 months ago was Tessa's nursery, will now be Caboose's nursery.  On the rare occasions when guests come, Matt will get to have a sleepover with the girls or he can crawl in bed with us.  He crawls in bed with us at least once a week anyway.  Some nights when we go to bed, we find Matt fast asleep hiding under our pillows.  (Totally freaked out a babysitter last week when she went to check on the sleeping kids and Matt was nowhere to be found.  She called us in a panic, afraid Matt had snuck out of the house. Thank heavens we knew otherwise).

But with everyone coming through in the next few months for birth and blessing, it doesn't seem logical to move Matt right away.  So by 12:30 am we decided that all the upstairs rooms will currently stay as configured, and we will make a little corner for Caboose in our room with a bassinet and a glider.  The more things change the more they stay the same.  I think I'll go buy lipstick.