The Dining Room Table

We picked out our dining room table with the utmost of care. We wanted it to have a drop-leaf, so that we could sit a cozy four or roomy eight. The color of the wood had to at least compliment the tone of the wood floors. I had to be able to sit at it and not find my chin to be level with the table, but the chairs couldn't be so high that we couldn't tuck in our chairs without chafing the tops of our thighs. We wanted neutral-colored seats with a cleanable surface.

We found it, the perfect table. And it's a good thing we had high standards, because it is the nicest changing table we could ever ask for. It started very simple with a changing pad and wipes, and a handful of diapers. I then decided it was too far to walk a few feet to either the bathroom or the kitchen to wash my hands, so then came the hand sanitizer. And lotion, because the hand sanitizer eats at my hands. These bottles of liquid were placed on a tray, with room to also house the baby shampoo, body wash and lotion. Because really, we have great counter space, why not just do the baths in the kitchen? Then Oliver started pushing the boundaries of his diapers, so we added the back-up clothing pile. And lately, we have begun to change him into pajamas for night time instead of swaddling a blanket over little onesies, so we have a pair or two of those on our lovely table. Oh, and because he's too strong and big to be swaddled any more, we're also putting him in a wearable blanket that you can zip up to avoid the blanket-over-the-head risk. So that's there right next to the PJs.

Which leaves two-to-three chairs at the end of the table for us to sit at for dinner. Our table has been swallowed up, all by things to help keep our little guy relatively clean (as clean as you can get when you sit in your own poo and spit up some remnant of almost every liquid meal). Just so you know, we are still happy to continue to host friends and family for parties, holidays, and friendly meals, if you're still hungry. We'll try to seat you near the pajama-end of the table.