Grassy

The theme for our nursery is, "Safari," which does not mean much except that we hung pictures from our trip to South Africa on the walls. I also found some safari themed wall decals at a big box store, and I put them on the walls above the crib and above the changing area.

Baby spends quite a bit of time in the changing area, which my husband affectionately calls Party Town. On the wall directly above Party Town, there are several decals: a zebra, a tuft of grass, a monkey, a few leaves, and a giraffe. The tuft of grass is about six inches from where Baby's head rests when he visits Party Town, and Baby loves, loves, loves to stare at that tuft of grass. He loves it so much that my husband and I have taken to calling that decal, "Grassy." We have even narrated (yes, out loud) a whole friendship between Baby and Grassy. On almost every visit to Party Town, Baby stares at the grass decal, and one of us (frequently, both of us) will talk to Baby about his best friend Grassy.

Yesterday, when my husband came home from work, we enjoyed that rare and precious commodity: time to talk to each other. I talked about the circus that is our local post office and about Baby's sleep patterns. Then, I shared the following:

"Today, [Baby] noticed the zebra next to Grassy. He looked skeptical, so I explained that Zebra was a friend of Grassy's, and that they could all three be friends."

In the brief, yet distinct, moment of silence that followed, I decided to keep a closer eye on the line between Momma/Baby World and Momma/(Still) An Intelligent, Creative, Interesting Adult World.