Home!

On Wednesday the two of us took a little car ride into New Haven. Today, three of us left for home. Yes, the nice people at Yale snipped off the baby anti-theft device/anklet and off we went. We still haven't been issued a baby license yet, so I'm not entirely sure this whole thing is totally legal, but we're going to lie low here until the heat wears off. Until then, here are some shots from the eventful past few days.

Erika needed double confirmation that Eliza was, in fact, a girl.

2 tired girls!

Eliza and Gramma.

2 guys and a girl.

3 generations.

Dana + Eliza.

Todd couldn't wait to hold Eliza! Seriously.

Shelly regaling Eliza with tales of Joe Pa.

Lauren is a pro.

All ready to go home!

First steps in the house as...a dad!

Almost time for sleeping. Or not.

Eliza is Here!

Here we are at Yale-New Haven hospital, just the three of us. Many more pictures to come - thousands, likely - but here's the first one of the newest Chapin family! This is literally minutes after Eliza arrived!

The Nursery

For whatever reason I've been procrastinating on doing this nursery blog. Maybe it's because I am awesome at procrastinating and do so whenever I can. You would think I'd have learned by now. Nope. Anyway, today is Erika's due date and so far the verdict is NO BABY. So we're going to go out to dinner, I'll slip a jalapeno into Erika's beet salad and we'll see what happens. In the meantime...check out where this kid is going to spend the first 65% or so of its first few months.

This kid better be a good reader! Many books courtesy of our friends at Hopkins and Watertown High School!

Erika's rocker - quite comfy, by the way. I see myself spending time there, you know, not breastfeeding.

That is one SHARP changing table!


Note the vintage old school Red Sox cap. That's mine!

Changing the Changing Table

There are a couple books written on what kinds of things to buy when you're expecting a baby. We've now read them all and are currently rereading they just in case we missed any gems of wisdom. One of the near-universal suggestions in these books was that we didn't need to buy a separate changing table. So we didn't. What the authors of these books apparently didn't have was a mother that saved a changing table for 30 years!

When we picked up this table things looked pretty grim. But, as we've proven with our house, a coat or three of paint can work wonders. We consulted our books a ninth time to see what kind of paint we should use so the baby wouldn't contract scurvy or plague from the paint fumes and proceeded.

Which is dirtier: the table or the outfit?

This project looks pretty easy. You know what's not easy? Trying to sand, prime and paint in the little crevices of 87 little dowels. There was a point where I thought we might just go with the "distressed" look, saving me the time of priming. And there was another point when the primer itself didn't look so bad. But we ultimately decided that our kid deserved a painted changing table and the job was seen to completion.

Much better! Plus, no dirty Redhook shirt!