William's new room

One of the best things about our new house here in Nashville is that William finally has his own room. He had to share a room in Twentynine Palms with our guest room furniture, which left him almost no room to play. That didn't bother me too much when he was a little baby because his play space was pretty much limited to the borders of his activity mat anyway.

(Plus, I tried to console myself that babies don't know the difference between a perfect, decorated nursery and a makeshift one. Perfect nurseries are mostly for mommies anyway, let's admit it. With that belief, I felt okay with not having the perfect nursery at first. That is, until I saw other babies' nurseries. Then I felt sad that William's stuff was just crowded into a room with a bunch of other stuff, while other babies had these lovely little coordinated retreats with curtains that matched their crib linens and their names spelled out in letters on the wall. After seeing one such little room, I went home and looked at William's nursery, and sighed over the way the guest room bed and dresser were wedged in next to the crib and changing table. William didn't seem to mind, and I knew it was silly of me to mind--especially since I've already admitted I'm not the wall-mural-painting type--but part of me still wished I could've had the perfect nursery for him from the outset. However, having a double bed in William's room turned out to be very useful for those early morning wakeups when he'd want to nurse at 6 a.m. But still. I think the lack of a perfect nursery was just one of those guilty-over-not-being-the-perfect-mom hangups that for better or for worse, some of us...okay, I... will always have.)

As William got older and more mobile, his half-room was less than ideal. The hodgepodge, non-coordinated factor mattered less than the reality that he didn't have anywhere to play in there. Plus, it meant that all his toys lived in the (increasingly messy and crowded) family room.

Here, he lots of floor space, lots of room in which to play or just make a big mess, or both. So without further ado, here is William's new room!















Now he has room to practice walking in his own room:



















The new room may not be designer-perfect, but it's a whole lot more coordinated than the last room. It is still a work in process, too. I have a Pottery Barn Kids rug that matches the crib linens, but I need to clean it first. It's dusty from the old house and from the move. My next task after that is to figure out what to put on the walls. The previous owners left us a choo-choo train clock, so that will go up. And I found these wall hangings that Loretta sent to us last year, and one is a monkey print, so those will go up, too.

It just feels good to have a nice little room for my son. He seems to love it so far, too; he loves to drop to the floor and rest his cheek against the carpet. I guess it's such a novelty that he's just enjoying it as much as he can. We're trying to make the new room as completely toddler-proof as possible so he can hang out in there when we're trying to get stuff done. That way, we won't have to set up the dreaded play yard.

And here's a good look at all his teeth, for those of you who haven't had the chance to see them in person: