When Good Is Good Enough

I’ve talked a little about how I’m trying to be very intentional about the things I replicate about my pregnancy with Henry and the things that I let go. For example, it was important for me to start a scrapbook for the new baby during my pregnancy, just like I did for Henry. I also made the new baby a simple quilt like I did for Henry.

A while ago, I stated my intention to also make a pillow for his bed. My reasoning was more aesthetic than sentimental; I think Montessori floor beds can look pretty plain. For Henry I designed a little house pillow. This time around, I wanted to use a bigger and more comfortable pillow for breastfeeding in the middle of the night (after about the two-month mark when the baby starts sleeping in his own room). I settled on this design, which I was excited about because I was going to learn how to do piping.

I bought the pillow early on during a trip to IKEA but started dragging my feet about buying fabric. I didn’t want to spend money on new fabric, but I also wasn’t happy with anything in our existing collection.

And then I hit 36 weeks and started fretting about my lack of preparation. I definitely think I was overcome with panic rather than the classic nesting urge. I finalized our to-do list, starting shopping for non-perishable labor snacks, set up a little lamp with a dimmer switch for breastfeeding, ordered our birthing kit, delegated tasks to Matt, organized our bedroom, etc.

I also decided it was time to do something about the pillow (or lack thereof). I went into our craft room (which also functions as our guest room), and laid down on the futon that we had recently set out for out-of-town guests. I must have laid there for a solid 15 minutes just staring at our tupperware bins full of fabric. These days, it feels so much better to lie down than to stand up. I had serious trouble mustering the motivation to move.

So I didn’t. I just lay there and tried to figure out what I wanted to do about the pillow. I happened to be laying on an old pillowcase from IKEA (which I bought in 2003 when I first moved to Houston), and that’s when the idea hit me. Why not repurpose one of them into the baby’s new pillowcase?

I had to sew two straight lines to decrease the width and height of the pillowcase to make it fit the new pillow. Then I trimmed the excess fabric, turned it right-side-out, put it on the pillow. And voila! A simple, inexpensive solution (that just happens to have sentimental value!).