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We’re only a couple months from the arrival of our new baby and my wife and I are at odds about a baby nursery theme. I don’t think we need one. My wife thinks otherwise. I firmly believe an evil Council of Interior Designers invented the whole room “theme” trend just to trump up their own shady business model and make every home in America look like Elvis Presley’s Graceland or, in extreme cases, Disneyland.
When I was a kid most rooms didn’t have real themes. The only description you could use for a room was one of the following:
1. White.
2. Not white.
3. Messy.
4. Smelly.
5. Bathroom.
But today a room’s theme must be a complex amalgomation of time periods and matching accessories and the equivalent of studio props for decor. If you don’t feel like you’re walking onto a movie set when you enter the room, then your room’s theme isn’t established. Added to this conundrum is the fact that my wife and I have chosen to be surprised by the gender of our baby, so all our themes have to be gender-neutral.
Our baby’s room. Notice the changing table that doubles as a Craps table (ha! get it?)
This means that my wife is regularly shopping for and pricing out hundreds of different nursery and crib accessories of various themes. Still determined, I try to stop her:
“We don’t need a theme,” I argue. “The kid’s eyes won’t even open for the first couple weeks!”
“That’s puppies,” she explains. “Not babies.”
“Oh…then I guess I shouldn’t mention my idea for a Baby Litter Box, huh?”
“What?”
“Umm, nevermind. Look, these crib sheets are a quarter the size of our bed and yet they cost twice as much as our 400 threadcount bedding!”
“Baby sheets are special.”
“How so?”
“They’re made to fit cribs.”
“For that price it better take 40 years for a tribe of Tibetan Monks to weave them together from cotton plants that grow on the highest mountain peak in the world.”
She rolls her eyes at me.
“And, besides,” I continue. “No matter what sheets we get we know they’re going to be covered with all sorts of wonderfully disgusting liquids for the first two years of the kid’s life. Why spend the money on anything other than brown sheets?”
“The baby will be wearing diapers, Tom.”
“A bag of kitty litter is cheaper than a case of diapers.”
“What?”
“Nevermind. Okay… how about if we just save money by letting the kid sleep in a cardboard box filled with old towels?”
“My baby is not sleeping in a cardboard box!” my wife exclaims.
“Oh, not forever,” I assure her. “Only for the first couple years… at least until the kid gets the potty training thing down.”
“Definitely not…”
I want to argue more but finally agree to a themed room after I come to two important realizations:
1. Marriage is a compromise.
2. My wife is my only source of sex.
We decide to write down each of our room theme ideas and then present them to each other in typical HGTV fashion. See if you can pick out which ones are mine:
Barnyard Animals - We could have cute little duckies and cows all over the room with stuffed farm animals and a bard red crib with a sky blue ceiling.
Las Vegas Casino - Warm dark carpeting, padded leather crib, neon night lights and a slot machine that dispenses diapers would be the main accessories in this room. The windows would have to be bricked up and all the clocks removed, of course.
Jungle Safari - Bedding covered with lions and tigers and giraffes would be accented with stuffed animals of the same.
DOOM - Based on the video game, not the movie. That would be ridiculous. We could have angled lighting, modern accents and realistic blood stains splashed up on the wall. The way I figure it the horror of the room will be tame when compared to what’s coming out of the baby’s diaper.
We’re going to vote tomorrow on the design. I’m pretty sure I know what we’re both going to agree on.
In the meantime could you please let me know if have an inside source on a crib with a neon martini glass on it?…
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3 Responses to “Picking A Baby Nursery Theme”
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thordora says:
I painted. That’s a theme, right?
August 12th, 2006 at 12:43 pm -
Julie says:
glad you figured out your wife is your main source of sex and let her pick the fricking theme. She has to or already did the hard part of giving the kid life, let her get some enjoyment out of the process, like shopping for the theme.
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Lydia says:
I loved the Vegas theme! I had just gone through the entire themes page at http://www.unique-baby-gear-ideas.com/baby-nursery-theme.htm
and didn’t find any other than maybe the Pirate Theme that I like better than yours! You could go into the dad baby decorating business! Thanks for the laugh. Lydia