What a room means to me.

Back in mid-2004, as I grew ripely pregnant, I embarked on the time-honored expectant-mother ritual of preparing my baby's room. Armed with my well-thumbed, tabbed, highlighted copy of Baby Bargains, I put together my baby registry and then strongarmed hubby into driving me up to the Baby Boudoir furniture outlet in New Bedford in the truck. We picked out a lovely baby furniture set that matched the beautiful woodwork already in the room, and I spent the last of my money saved from when I had my own business buying it. I also bought an inexpensive glider/rocker/recliner and gliding ottoman set from K-Mart, of all places, because I couldn't afford a fancy baby glider, and hello, those don't recline anyway. It didn't match, being black, but I left that to deal with later.


And then? The accessory search. I didn't want any trite theme, something that would look SOOO CUTE now but would become cloying after only months of hanging out in the room nursing the baby. I just wanted the room to look happy, airy, mildly stimulating without causing epileptic seizures. After much shopping, and agonizing, in multiple home furnishing establishments, I settled on yellow curtains, a yellow crib bumper set, yellow bed linens for the queen-sized guest bed which we'd decided to leave in there for the time being, and a very cute primary-color checkerboard area rug, again from K-Mart. My best friend's mom contributed a hand-embroidered Noah's Ark themed wall hanging. The one item that took the longest to find was a yellow fleece throw to go over the black glider/rocker.

Then my baby shower happened. Now I had all these wonderful baby things to settle into the room. I spent many a happy hour assembling baby toys, swings, etc. and finding their proper places.

Finally, all was ready. All I had to do was wait. And wait. And wait, as babygirl took her time about being born. We finally brought her home from the hospital, nine days after her due date.

I was so glad for all the preparation we put into her room. I spent hours in there, nursing her, changing her, failing to get her to sleep in her crib, sleeping (or just lying there desperately wanting to sleep) with her on the guest bed. Then she got a little bigger, a little more independently able to move, and we began playing in there with her toys, her swing, her fingers, my toes. Her room was the warm, peaceful oasis of the house. Even when the rest of the house went completely to pot, I made a point of keeping her room neat and clean. Her bed always got made. Her clothes always got folded and put away. Her rug got vaccuumed. The shades got opened every day and the sunshine streamed in through the sunny yellow curtains.

Babygirl learned to crawl, and even started toddling. She loved moving freely between the living room, the kitchen, and her bedroom. She loved it when the dog laid his big, achy Great Dane bones on the bed in her room. She loved it when her daddy and I lay with her on that bed and just rained down our love on her. She loved it when I nursed her, quietly rocking back and forth in the glider with the extra stereo, set up next to me, softly playing classical music.

Then, the soap opera started. The state Department of Children, Youth and Families got involved in my brother-in-law's babymama's life. DCYF quickly figured out that my BIL and his wife had their shit together, and backed down from its investigation of Hyperactive Boy's case. (HB is the son of my BIL and Babymama). But DCYF did NOT like what it saw of Babymama's life, and how it affected her daughter Holy Terror, the spawn of an ill-advised one-night stand. Long story made short, one day at 4PM, Babymama calls my husband, an acknowledged softy, in hysterics. DCYF had given her until 9AM the next morning to find another place to live before they would come and take HT away and put her into foster care. My hubby comes to me, tears in his eyes, and begs me to let Babymama and HT stay with us for a little while until Babymama can get her shit together. With a heavy heart, I agree to let them come and stay in my babygirl's room.

Babymama came, with HT, and proceeded to make our lives absolutely miserable. She was always the victim, you see; nothing was ever her fault, and she was just helpless to make anything positive happen, ever. She had no interest in getting her shit together, or in anything but squatting in our space. HT was herself; that is, a completely undisciplined, snotty, feral little creature who was also miserable in the emotional sense of the word - she was clearly aware on some emotional level that nobody loved her, except her mother, who only just barely loved her and used her for leverage at every opportunity. Babygirl was not pleased either. She knew that they were in HER room, and never did understand why she could not freely come and go as she had since she learned to crawl.

The crib came out of "their" room because we were desperate to get Babygirl out of our bed. This was a huge pain in the ass - the crib was wider than any of our doors, so it had to be taken completely apart. Then our bed had to be lifted up to make way for it to come into our room.

It was so hard, Babygirl not having a room while Babymama and HT were squatting in our home. Babygirl is a lousy sleeper, and in the past we had felt free to plunk her in her crib, shut the door, and let her scream for awhile while we regained our composure. Now that was just not an option. Her sleep problems became our insurmountable sleep problems. No breathing room. No escape hatch. No pressure valve. Just hubby, me and a screaming, angry baby at 2AM when I needed to wake up for work at 4.

Ultimately, it was this problem that finally gave me the strength to show Babymama the door. Babygirl needed her room back. We needed babygirl to have her room back so that we would be able to step away when the nighttime pressures built up to the point of imminent explosion. When it came down to weighing babygirl's welfare against the possibility of putting 3-year-old HT out on the street, there was no question which way to go.

We still haven't gotten babygirl's room back to its pre-Babymama state. Moving the crib back in is just going to be a humungous project, and I'm waiting for a replacement for a critical broken part to arrive. But it is OUR room again, mine and hubby's and babygirl's, and the filthy twilight darkness that Babymama filled the room with is finally gone.

A couple of days after I kicked Babymama out, hubby looked around the room, and said wonderingly, "You know, we made this the nicest room in our house, and we just gave it away for six months." He was right. We've been in our room for 3 1/2 years and it's the only room in our house that has proper curtains in it, not to mention furniture that matches the woodwork. But more than that, the room was our haven. Our oasis. Our peaceful place, full of love and play and calm and music. It was that place, and now we are well on our way to making it that place again. And, you know, it's amazing. The more the room is restored to its harmonious, peaceful state, the more our family life is doing the same.

We will give up our own room before we ever give up babygirl's room again.