Past the front door.

Yesterday, when I wrote about coming home from the hospital, I only got you to the front door. But the post was supposed to be about Mom and how much she did for us after Bugster was born, and that started after we walked in the front door.

Our new couch and chair were a blue background with a floral print, and when I walked in, I was in shock at what Mom had done. She had taken some old blue tablecloths that had been retired from a restaurant supply place that my husband had worked for prior to going into the USMC and covered boxes with them. She'd put one on either side of the couch and on one side of the chair.

We had end tables, and they looked beautiful! Seriously. The really looked great!

I forgot until I started writing this that we'd also gotten a pair of blue lamps when we got the furniture from the mobile home place. Mom had placed them each on one of the new end tables, so we also had light! There was no overhead light in the living room, so it was huge to have the lamps, and they looked so nice sitting there and lit up. It made this little house on base look so much better than I could ever imagine while I was in the hospital.

Mom had also altered some green drapes for the living room. They happened to match the olive green tones in the floral print of the furniture, and they just made the entire room. And to add the cherry to the top of the figurative ice cream sundae, Mom also fixed up curtains for the dining room and kitchen windows. They were a light blue and sage green stripe with a floral pattern on them. They remind me very much of the curtains in the kitchen on Everybody Loves Raymond. They were bright and cheery and just what I needed!

Mom instinctively knew that I needed privacy with a new baby. And with the windows wide open, it was nonexistent before she made the curtains. I can't explain what a huge difference it made for me. I felt very vulnerable in many ways after I had Bugster and having curtains gave me a sense of security that I didn't even know I needed until I had it.

We did have a crib for Baby Bugster, but it was in our bedroom. We didn't have a bassinet for the living room for convenience. All we had was a little cardboard box with handles in the ends of it that came home from the hospital. It was a cardboard bassinet that had been filled with samples from the hospital along with a couple of little receiving blankets, a Onsie or two, and samples of formula amongst other things. I can't tell you how handy it was having that little bassinet for her. I felt so bad when I finally had to throw it away after it wore out after using it for Hopper.

Anyway, we put the cardboard bassinet on one of the new end tables at the end of the couch. And Mom selflessly slept on the couch with Baby Bugster in the cardboard bassinet, so I could get some sleep. When Bugster would wake up, Mom would comfort her back to sleep or change her diaper or bring her into me, so I could feed her.

I was so overwhelmed with being a new mom and so unsure of myself in that role, that Mom's presence and help for that week gave me just what I needed. Her assurance that I was doing the right thing, her answers to each of my many questions, and her gentle suggestions gave me the confidence that I could do this, and that I was going to be a good mom. I will forever be grateful for Mom and all she did for me. I don't think she knows to this day how much she helped me through things.

Mom is seriously the most incredible woman I know.

I hope one day to be to Bugster what Mom has been to me.