Productivity

Yesterday was the most productive Saturday we’ve had in at least 4 months. It had been a busy and sleepy week (the reason for my long absence), and I really thought I’d spend the day laying on the couch. Let’s face it, that’s pretty much all I do these days. But when 7:00 a.m. rolled around, I was wide awake and ready for action.

Well, not exactly action, but I was really hungry. And when I’m hungry, the world stops. Including sleep.

Want to know the key to a successful morning?

No television.

Saturday morning cartoons make my body sluggish, and it’s impossible to get up the motivation to start anything active. It gives my brain an excuse to be lazy right in the prime hours of productivity. And I can’t have that. So I sent a few e-mails to some lovely friends who had offered some motherly advice. I worked on planning some games for a baby shower coming up. I did some laundry that had been piling up for over two weeks. I folded some laundry that had been piling up for over two weeks. I tried to track down a mailing address for a friend that’s getting married. I called my parents. And things just started getting checked off the “to do” list. All before noon.

And guess what? I made some decisions. Surprised? Me too! After talking with some of you mamas and reading a ton of reviews, I decided on not only the type of infant stroller we’d be buying (a Snap ‘n Go frame from Baby Trend since some friends have loaned us their infant car seat) but also the sleeping arrangement for my little girl once she gets home from the hospital (a bassinet borrowed from another good friend until we’re ready to transition to her crib).

It’s okay to gasp. I did too.

This is a huge success for me, the girl who cried over the color of towels at the last big change in my life.

And I think all these major decisions made my productivity contagious. When Brandon came home from a church meeting and I explained the full reasoning for my choices, he got up and moved a couch. Literally. Right out of the baby’s room, like we had been planning to do for weeks. And because it wouldn’t fit quite right in our bedroom the way it was set up, he moved around every piece of furniture until it would. Our bed. Our dresser. Our nightstands. Our chair. Everything.

And because I’m useless when it comes to moving furniture right now, I started looking up things on Craigslist. And wouldn’t you know it? The exact stroller frame I just decided to buy was listed for sale for half the asking price of the original model in the store. I’ve been looking at Craigslist for months for things that would be useful with absolutely no luck. I make a decision, and BAM! It’s available. (Before I could waffle. Ahem.) We called. We set up an appointment. We drove out to Ewa Beach to buy it.

Did you hear that? We bought a stroller frame for our infant car seat. At half the price. Hooray.

And because we were already all the way out in Ewa Beach, why not just drive a couple more minutes further and register and Babies ‘R Us? So that’s what we did. For the next two hours, we wandered the store with the scanner and made more decisions about things for our little one. Swaddling blankets. Bouncers. Diapers. Baby lotions. High chair. Bottles. We went through it all. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get everything we’ll use, and some things were skipped so that we could read reviews, and there’s things we scanned that we probably don’t need, but we registered! And I held Brandon’s hand while we did it. And it was special to pick out little things for our daughter together.

Yes, I did go down the bikini isle. Because every baby girl should have a ruffly yellow bikini. (Although I didn’t find one here.)

And then we got home and did nothing. Because it was already late. And we were in a little bit of shock that so much got done.

Bedtime came early.