Written by: Caroline
When you’re pregnant with your first child, you fixate on their nursery. What theme is it going to be? What decorations do you need to get? Is this glider nice enough? How many wipes can I fit into this wipe warmer? Then soon after the kid arrives you realized that these things mostly collect dust, get pooped, or puked on. Also, how much time does your child actually spend in this room? With Lilly, she mostly slept in a bassinet next to our bed for the first couple of months but we stressed ourselves out to make sure her nursery was finished before she was born.
While pregnant with Lilly, I knew her nursery theme was going to be Winnie-the-Pooh. (Not the Disney version. I wanted it to be the classic Winnie-the-Pooh). We didn’t exactly have names narrowed down until we were at the hospital and we didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl but we did know what the theme of the nursery was going to be. In fairness I had Lilly’s nursery picked out years ago.
When I volunteered at various Girl Scout camps, for the most part my camp name was Piglet. So throughout the years, I got a LOT of Piglet, pig, or just general Winnie-the-Pooh themed items. It also solidified my love of the series and I determined that my first child’s room would be Winnie-the-Pooh themed. Joe was made aware of this at some point during our relationship and the agreement was that he could choose the nursery theme of our second child.
After we found out we were pregnant with Elliot, Joe decided that we should do an “Under the Sea” theme for the nursery. His criteria included “no beach and no mermaids.” After learning what the theme was our friend got us a handcrafted wooden mobile with an octopus and some sea creatures which helped us find other items to curate the space. I found some watercolor prints with sayings like ‘be brave’ on them with some cute sea creatures. I then asked my Facebook circle for recommendations for a local artist who could possibly do some additional art for his room.
I was referred to Geri Shields, who had a squid drawing on her website that I thought was adorable. After contacting her, we commissioned three more undersea creatures and were very happy with what she provided us. My mom, when cleaning out her house to prepare for moving, also found my old turtle light switch cover which was the perfect addition.
Now, this was very different from how we handled Lilly’s room, timing-wise. We picked out colors for Elliot’s room before he was born and had color samples on the wall before he came home. I might have had half of the artwork up, but I didn’t commission the work from Geri until after Elliot was born. We didn’t start painting Elliot’s room until he was three months old and that was about when we actually put up his mobile because big sister wasn’t using his bed at night anymore. We didn’t get Elliot’s room ‘finished’ until after he was six months old. This was slightly concerning for us but Elliot doesn’t care. And all of that stress making sure Lilly’s room was ‘perfect’ before she arrived wasn’t entirely necessary.
It’s nice that this room is finally finished and our house feels more like a ‘home’ for everyone where all the kids have their own space. It may have taken a while to get Elliot’s room done, but we got to enjoy the journey with him instead of before him.
Geri Shields’ website:
Where you can see the pieces in Elliot’s room and other animals she has done:
https://www.gerishields.com/illustration#/animals/
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