BY KIMBERLY MAYER
Everything I know about the KonMari Method I learned from a baby not even born yet. Like everyone else, I bought the book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, but it’s been lying around and waiting in the wings to be read. Like clutter. Nevertheless, on a visit with my daughter who is due any day now, we plunged in.
My baby is having a baby. At the same time she and her husband are remodeling a house in San Diego, and that fell behind due to one thing or another—most recently, heavy rains. Who would have thought? Anyway there wasn’t anything to do but turn a storage room in their apartment into the nursery for now.
With all the chaos that surrounds her in remodeling, my daughter says “his drawers give me a sense of calm.” At first glance in life, their baby will have what I am only beginning to appreciate: organization and minimalism.
Pacing through the construction schedule, my son-in-law has lately adopted “better done than perfect” as a mantra. I’m making it my mantra as well. We are all perfectionists apparently; it runs both in our blood and by marriage. But at some point projects have to be finished and babies will be born.
And the next thing you know, you’re a grandparent.
a little elbow room
a little elbow room 
Love this! And what a marvelous grandparent you will be. Sounds like turning chaos into calm is the theme, as well it should be for that little one to be born into…a world of calm. You ARE amazing and talented my friend.
There is nothing I hope to be more in this next chapter in life than a marvelous grandparent. You mention turning chaos into calm, and I realize how much writing helps with this. We reframe things as we write, and like a metal detector, try to find the truth in the sand.
Amen to that, Kim! I love the metal detector metaphor. Lately, that is absolutely what writing has felt like: trying to find truth in the sand.
A metal detector or a dowsing rod.
awesome — so true — some times we get stuck in perfect
So easy to lose perspective, isn’t it? The house may not be finished, but the nursery–the baby’s world–is going to be lovely.
Sweet! Love the welcoming elephant…
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We’ll be flying in with an armload of Babar books!