Hip kid or sensible parents? I say both!

picture from www.dwell.com

As my conversations begin to include health insurance premiums and family alongside the old reliables of beerfests and artfests so do my thoughts of little ones. Three friends of mine have children well beyond the baby age but a whole new crop of babies have been born to friends in the last year. As my friends continue to procreate I am learning the many do's and don'ts of parental decor. And the best way to achieve fashion and function for baby's living space.

Last week Joe and I took a jaunt OTP(that is outside the perimeter for you non-Atlantans, AKA the 'burbs) to Newnan to visit a former coworker of his. Newnan and its neighbor next door Peachtree City are where most pilots go to spawn their young. It is sterile and suburban(30 minutes outside of the city limits), with a little bit of kitch (golf carts are the low mpg auto of choice in Peachtree City).

When you walk in to their home you see that the couple have a seven month old son, he does not have them. Allow me to explain. While watching HGTV this weekend I saw a couple who were unable to sell their home after many. many months on the market. Upon further inspection it was painfully obvious that its lack of saleability had to do with the obscene amount of baby stuff that had taken over the house. Kudzu had nothing on the teetering piles of balls, baubles and binkys. The beautiful hardwoods in the dining room had been covered by a foam puzzle piece mat of the alphabet. The amazing black granite counter tops in the kitchen were covered with formula containers and baby bottles. They were told the home would never sell in it's current Baby's-R-Us state and they needed to do a clean up immediately.

Flash to Newnan, GA. The perfect balance of baby and sanity. Baby Preston sits on a palette in the living room with several toys and his Baby Einstein activity walker close by. He is the picture of class. No piles of toys or gargantuan playpen/castle/dinosaur houses; only a baby gate and the staircase to protect him from his own curiosity. During dinner he sat in a smaller more demure walker that was housed in the corner of the dining room. Used during meals with guests, the walker was equipped with one of his favorite toys, a plastic water bottle half full of marbles. The toy, his fathers invention, kept him captivated until he surrendered to sleep.

Oh Lord (and opinionated friends) tell us when Joe and I go wrong. Actually never let us go into the black hole of baby clutter. Never let me say, "Oh well you know...the baby..." Let me keep my anal retentiveness that has brought me so far in such an orderly fashion! And let yu live by the same tidy rules with your very own spawn.