Back before SB (small boy) came into the picture, our house looked fairly nice for two people who were born without the decorating gene.  We had tchotchkes from the places we’d traveled, some interesting photos and paintings on the walls, and overall things matched fairly well.  I don’t think Architectural Digest would have beaten down our door, but our house looked presentable.

Now our house looks like Walmart after a Midnight Madness sale – trashed, stuff everywhere, chaos, and two stunned people who can’t understand what the hell just happened.  The worst part is that everything breakable or dangerous is at least four feet off the ground in order to keep SB alive.  I suppose this decorating scheme will be handy if there’s ever a flood.

As I sit here writing this, I’m looking around our living room and here’s what I see: three ears and a mouth for Mr. Potato Head; about 10,000 Hot Wheels festively strewn across the floor; assorted dog squeaky toys (she’s in on this too, I know it); and for some reason only two year old boys know, there’s an ambulance and a dump truck on the couch. 

In a desperate attempt to have one measly area in our house look presentable, we painted a wall a color called Juicy Cantaloupe, and hung our photos and candle sconces back up.  It looks really pretty…until…you look down.  Then you see a Thomas the Train table piled high with tracks, trains, helicopters and assorted boy stuff.  And that’s right next to a giant red Lightening McQueen chair.  FAIL.

As a result of all of this, I’m starting to think that the trick is to not look down.  Sort of like my “if you’re feeling fat, only look at your head when you pass a full length mirror” theory.  So from now on we’re only going to have tall friends over, and then simply force them to look up while they’re here. 

Denial wins again.