Nursery Prep & High Hopes

Who knew that becoming first time parents would catapult us into the group of highest consumers of plastic on the planet. Seriously, every single box we open contains a ridiculous amount of plastic packaging, foam padding, or some other chemical-laden shipping material. Our recycling pickup is only ever other week so our recycling bins have been stuffed to the max lately. This is one area where I've got to salute Ikea - they do an amazing job of environmentally friendly packaging and shipping. Honestly, 3 tiny boxes that fit into the trunk of a compact car will somehow magically turn into a king size bedroom set. It's kind of like the circus stunt where 15 clowns pour out of a VW Bug only it's an entire homes worth of furniture crammed into a handful of boxes with minimal amounts of plastic. Children's shops could learn a thing or two.

So what did all of those boxes and sheets of plastic bubble wrap and newspaper wads net us? An almost complete nursery! I really think we're one order of gDiapers and a diaper genie away from having the basics covered. Yes I know I'm fully delusional and that there are certain to be zillions of runs to the store for the "absolutely necessary" items we're sure to have forgotten or just haven't thought about yet, but I stopped worrying about all of that the moment my experienced mother of three older sister booked her flight to visit us over Memorial Day weekend. She thinks she's coming out for a relaxing weekend. Yeah...

8 days. I got an email from our agency yesterday that said aside from events out of our control such as a family member not showing up or there not being electricity that day (Addis Ababa has been without electricity about 2 of 5 weekdays per week lately because of an awful drought) that we should have high hopes of passing court next Friday. Of course the events that are out of our control could certainly occur, we're just hoping they don't!