House Proud?

This is a phrase from Nate Berkus, a guy with a daytime decorating show on NBC that is on sometimes when Lily takes a nap on my lap. This is also a phrase that doesn't particularly apply to my life right now. 

I was so excited when we got an unfurnished apartment in Chicago. Before, in Tucson, we rented a fully furnished house. The same was true for when I was living by myself in grad school. And previous to that I was living in a dorm room (which always looked fabulous thanks to Kate's good taste and Leo's carpentry skills). So I was really looking forward to starting with a blank slate and buying real grown-up furniture, not just a mish-mashed collection. I had wild dreams of nice furniture, pretty fabrics, lush area rugs, and hanging things on the walls.

Then reality set in. Furniture is expensive. And we have a baby that produces a greater amount and variety of slime than I could have imagined. And we can't really put nails in the walls. So off to IKEA we went. And we raided both of our parents homes for extra shelves, dressers, tables, etc. It all sort of fits together in an eclectic, unplanned kind of way and I'm ok with it. 

I'm less ok with the baby stuff that is everywhere. As I look around the living room there is a giant blue rubber cow, stuffed toy mushroom, and bathtub turtle scattered across the floor; one stroller in the front hall and another in the front closet with the door that won't shut because of said stroller; and a pair of tiny socks on the coffee table. We have bins and baskets to throw things into, and it's usually pretty neat, but right from the moment you walk in our apartment says there's a baby here. 

That in and of itself is not a bad thing. I love Lily and she certainly doesn't have an excess of stuff. I just don't want it to be THE defining feature of our home. We're still our own people, a young twenty-something couple, and we happen to have a baby. Sadly, our current living situation doesn't really allow for anything else. We just don't have the room to designate baby and non-baby areas. Actually, as I write this I don't believe there should be any non-baby areas, just non baby-stuff areas. Still, an impossibility for the present.  But, it is what it is. Someday we will have a house with a place for Lily and all her paraphernalia along with some more grown-up spaces.   

We have a baby, but we also still have interests and ideas outside of baby-dom. Just take a peek at our bookshelves. Our lives are too full to contain in just our little place. That's why we have our garden plot, spend countless hours in parks and on trails, are members at museums, frequent the local library, and are regulars at the neighborhood restaurants. Chicago is our home, not just what fits in our walls.

So for now, if you come over for dinner and the couch squeaks when you sit down because Lily stuffed a toy under the cushion, just ignore it. Then ask me what I think about the Anthropocene.