Decorating

Home decorating 101. It's time to decorate your babies room. Nothing says welcome to our family like a bunch of wall decals and maybe a picture of some friendly looking monkeys. I mean, when I was a baby I remember being extraordinarily excited to check out the new digs that I was in. It was amazing, here you go from being packed like a sardine into a uterus out into the big world. And, after the crying ceases, it's pretty great to see all of the trouble that your parents went to while you were in the womb. Though I distinctly remember thinking, I wouldn't have gone with that particular shade of green, perhaps misting fine rain would have been better. Except that I didn't have any of these thoughts because I was a baby. And babies can't see a damn thing.

Thus, inspired by the craze, I blame Martha Stewart, of decorating your baby's room as though they are a new tenant and you really want them to rent S stared showing me pictures of rooms on HGTV's web site. The rooms all have names like "Warm and Woodsy" or child inspired names like "Presley's Place" or "Roman's Empire." The sad part about looking at these rooms is that their often dotted with pottery barn furniture that we can't afford, and the occasional walk in closet, which is a must have for a newborn. Thus, I know that the only way that we can compete is to name our room something equivalently obnoxious. My first idea was to have a room with a crib, a changing table, and a dresser. I thought we could call it "Cold and Functional." For some reason S doesn't think that's the best name. Thus, we're stuck trying to come up with something cutesy.

What about Brayden's bear cave? No.

This picture sort of creeps me out for no good reason. Maybe because it's so old-timey. On the other hand it reminds me of when we were kids, and we'd want to cover our whole room in blankets to turn it into a cave. The whole project would take hours, or what seemed like hours, I don't know, time is different for kids, and we'd finally have it all set up and then some books would fall, or we'd realize that it was too hot, and everyone would end up leaving the room behind after half an hour or so, spending far less time enjoying the cave than we did in building it, and I'm certain that there was a lesson somewhere in building that giant cave of blankets, but I haven't discovered it yet. Perhaps that we should have thought ahead and brought AC?

Howard's hall of mirrors. Granted I don't think the name Howard has been used in a few decades but that's some pretty solid decorating you could do with that. Model the whole thing after Versailles.

Let's empty the bank account and make other couples jealous. Nothing says I love you to a child like giant hall of mirrors. Hopefully these mirrors will all be reflecting giant clowns or something else even scarier. I jest. Nothing is scarier than clowns.

I've run out of ideas because I can't quite find a viable name/theme mix. Although, I'm not trying particularly hard. Hmm.
David's Dump? Don't kids like dump trucks and stuff? Okay, clearly a bad idea, but I stumbled on this gem.


You supply the name, and I'll supply the carriage/child.

I guess when it comes down to it I just have a hard time parsing between the need to "nest," which is attributed to women and the obvious external influences of things like Martha and HGTV et al.Before I go any further let it be said that I am guilty of engaging in suspect behavior like avidly watching sports teams that would have been absolutely impossible to do really before the advent of television. Back in the day you checked your favorite team's outcome in the newspaper box score. So, I don't know if we're planning a wonderful room because we want our baby to be a part of our family or whether we're planning our baby's room to be perfect because you're supposed to plan a baby's room to be perfect. It's probably somewhere in between the two, and I'd even harbor a guess that it's leaning more towards the former than the latter.

I suppose it is one of those scenarios when it's probably best to just say uncle and get out of the pin as it's something I can't relate to that well. I want our child to have a wonderful life. For me that means buying a crib, a changing table, a dresser and a chair and putting them in the room. And, if they don't work in the particular configuration that we place them, then I'd probably just move them. Then again, the whole point is mostly moot because I am in no way shape or form a planner. My idea of planning is to wait until the last minute and then do things in a flurry of activity in which at least one critical item gets broken. My role is probably just to move things and to remind S (not that she needs it that much)that we won't need everything to make our baby loved. We probably just need to love it. And by that I mean, diapers, copious amounts of diapers.

Something that needs some work

At least I wasn’t born without a sense of humor, was the sort of thing that he’d say, when you got to be that age when you felt like you had to answer for something that you didn’t have a damn thing to do with. Technically he had tactile anesthesia. People were always asking him questions like, what he missed most about not being able to touch. And it was the sort of thing where you could tell that people wanted him to say something like a hug, or a good night kiss. And so he generally responded with something like, “I miss hugging my mother.”

It was the sort of response that turned folks misty eyed, and sometimes he got a little misty eyed as well. He pretty much always cried when other people did. It was a weakness. What he really missed though, he thought, as he rocked in that old white chair his daddy had picked up and hauled back from the dump, with the screws loose in the back, but still, a damn fine piece of furniture, was something he had never touched at all. He thought, or rather he guessed, that he’d like to touch a woman’s chest. It seemed a shame to him that he’d never really be able to.