Excessive Basketure

We are in the final stages of getting Riggins' room all ready for his arrival. The walls are painted, the furniture is assembled and arranged, the bedding is in the crib, and little-by-little we are filling it all with tinsy little baby things.

One challenge in our space is that our home was built in the early 20th-century. You know, back in the days when you had maybe two work dresses and a church dress and that was your "wardrobe." So each of our two bedrooms has one small-ish closet; my things are in our bedroom closet, Jonathan's in the nursery closet. Which leaves no room in the inn for Riggs' things to be stored away.

We are having to get creative with our storage options by using the changing table (formerly known as MamaDot's dining room buffet), under-the-crib drawer, bookcase (handmade by Jonathan as his first Christmas gift to me when we were dating), and amoire (thank you, Craigslist!). And every woman knows that to organize each of these spaces to its maximum potential, there is one essential:

BASKETS.

Over the past few weeks, I have been on a mission to find the ideal storage solutions so that everything in Riggs' room has its place. Thanks to a good stash of gift cards, I have been able to fill his armoire with the perfect arrangement of baskets. After that, the only thing missing was just a few more to put on his bookcase so that I could hide away some of the smaller items that--let's just face it--don't look as cute on display on a bookcase! (i.e. lullaby cd's, small cardboard books, tinsy toys, etc.)

Yesterday, we trecked out to Garden Ridge to purchase an area rug. After loading the rug in our cart, I insisted on doing a little "drive by" the organization section to check out their storage containers. Bingo! Three ivory canvas boxes...perfect for the book case.

I turned around and saw a horrified look on my husband's face.

"What is it, honey??? Are you having hesitations about the rug?"

(He had been nervous about keeping it clean and such, and I thought maybe he was getting cold feet about our new 8x10 shaggy pet).

"No," he replied. "It's not the rug."

"Well then, what is it?" I asked.

"It's the excessive basketure."

I'll spare you the gory details of the conversation that followed. It may or may not have included a segment along the lines of:

"Riggs needs to learn that everything has its place! I'll be able to teach him how to put all his little things away in the right spots!'

"And it is no longer ok to just put a book away on a shelf? It now has to go in a basket?"

"Excessive Basketure? That would make a great blog post title!"

In essence, it involved my confession that, yes, I have a crazy obsession with hiding away things that don't look nice on display and that, yes, it is silly that this obsession requires the purchase of special containers.

I think my self-awareness counted for something, because the baskets are now at home on the bookcase. As long as I can admit my delusional idiosyncracies, my sweet husband seems willing to entertain them every once in awhile. (Provided that indulgence is cheap at Garden Ridge).

And let me tell you...those baskets, excessive though they may be, look just right!