Theory vs. Reality of Nursery Rooms

When you have your first child, you often have this lovely vision of a beautiful, safe, color-coordinated room, stocked with the latest in educational and huggable plush toys. Everything has a place and everything is in that place. All of the time.

Then, the baby arrives.

Everything changes in an instant.

It's amazing how fast you can go from this and this and this to a steaming pile of mess.

Bookshelves no longer have books stacked lovingly on them. They are naked, save for all of the paper books on top of the shelves, out of the reach of paper shredding little devils. Boardbooks are dragged around with chew marks here and there, covers barely attached. The trashcan (Who needs a Diaper Genie? Not me!) is on top of the changing table to keep marauding fingers out of stinky trash. Dresser drawer pulls are removed to keep the finger smashing to a minimum. Look at how pretty the holes in the dresser look! Laundry is tossed into the laundry basket, at least. Toys are strewn throughout the room and tossed into a large plastic bin at the end of the day. Other books and toys and clothes float throughout the rest of the house, dragged there by child or cat or toddler.

After all, you never know when you're going to need a bear in the bathroom.

Cribs are pulled out from the wall to keep the wall banging damage to a minimum. The cute little throw rug is crunched up under the wheels of the cribs in a pathetic attempt to keep the babies from rocking the cribs all across the room (Whee! Roller derby!). The closet is filled with boxes of quickly outgrown clothing and toys, but nothing is on the lower shelves of the shelving unit placed there for that purpose initially. Instead, it doubles as a climbing gym.

Well, at least it's still baby safe!