One Room at a Time

I'm working on making the house feel more homey, and wanted to start with the kids' room. Decorating is definitely at or near the bottom of our life priority list, and we can live in a house with an ugly bathroom floor for a long time. But I feel like the boys room should look nice. For those readers who never saw our Boston house, I have to say, the boys' room was the highlight. Andy's mom did an amazing custom paint job to match the wendy belissimo bumblebee nursery set that I just fell in love with when I was pregnant with Owen. To this day, the thought of the new owners of the house painting over my nursery makes my heart ache and I prefer to delude myself by thinking that the 50-something lesbian couple that bought it were just so charmed by the nursery that they kept it just the way it was. Don't burst my bubble, friends, ok?

I'm not nearly as talented when it comes to painting and decorating, and sadly, the kids are really pushing too old for a baby nursery theme (although, had we stayed in our old house I probably would have kept them in the bumblebee room until they were 10 and 8. In retrospect, it's probably for the best that we left....) My lovely friend Jenna bought me an adorable package of transportation decals, so I broke out a level and a yardstick and made a line of them chugging around the walls of their room:

I used the royal blue curtains from our old dining room, and found a royal blue rug at home depot for $30, and I think that just those three things together (decals, rug, curtains) made the room look much more cozy. My mom had picked up a matching pair of multicolored striped blankets at Marshalls and gave them to me in the event I ever decided to change from pastels to primary colors, which came in handy:

Andy's mom had made wall decorations spelling the boys' names out of wood and painted them in a light green gingham-esque check to match the original nursery, and she's offered to repaint them in a royal blue and bright red, which I will take her up on. I think that once I put up those, the room will have a nice, finished look, good for the kids for a long while (I don't think Owen will be too cool for trucks until he's at least 8, do you?) but not too overdone. I'd love to paint the room, because I hate the bright white, but as you can see in the first picture the walls in all the bedrooms are textured, which the man at home depot advised me looks weird painted any color but white. So I think we might need to live with the white. Anyway, I feel good enough about this room to move one. One room down, 7 to go.

Diaper Free 2012*

Are we not supposed to talk about poop in the internet? I'm not sure what the rules are with respect to future mortification of children. I'm going to use my self-imposed rule that matters related to bodily functions under the age of 4 are fair game on the internet, after that it behooves a parent to be more circumspect. But with that said: we're potty trained, folks! Don't give me any credit. Elias followed his brother's lead in deciding one day that he was ready to use the potty, and then he ran with it. Also like his brother, it was like a light switch. One day, not trained. next day, trained. He decided on Sunday he was ready for undies full time, and he's only had 2 accidents to date. One of these was a pretty impressive pooptastrophe tonight, but that one was mostly my fault for not realizing that he wasn't done going and taking him off the seat too early. He's even been dry during his nap at school all 5 days this week. I am surprised, but thrilled. I realize that I have been very, very blessed in the toileting department. Owen was done with diapers (also 100% his own doing) at right around 2, I think the June after he turned 2 in March, and Eli obviously turned 2 last week. I think it's coincidental that they both followed the same pattern, and I'm certainly not going to pontificate on whatever spectacular parenting technique I used to accomplish training without fuss. Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that much of parenting is luck, or the absence of it. Just like I didn't do anything wrong and have a 4 year old that has slept through the night only a handful of times, I didn't do anything right to get my toddlers in undies. I am very grateful, though. I know potty training can be a huge and stressful ordeal and have many friends who struggle with it mightily, even with their 3 and 4 year olds. I also have many friends who found labor and delivery a breeze and had sunny, cheerful babies who slept through the night starting at 4 weeks. Parenting karma gets spread around unevenly, what can you do? tonight, however, I'm celebrating the end of diapers (and assuming we have no more kids, this is really the END OF DIAPERS.) that's kind of...crazy. and liberating! And a little sad. But mostly awesome. It's kind of like carrying around a 50 lb sandbag for 4 years. You get used to carrying it around. After awhile, you barely even notice you're carrying it. until you drop it, and you realize how awesome life was before you started dragging the damn thing around! diaper free....wheeeeee!



* A few people who read this blog will get that allusion, know what's funny about it, and hopefully find the juxtaposition of why it's funny to the actual subject at hand (potty training young children) amusing and not depressingly....adult.