This post about letting go and giving up. And embracing. Yep, that’s important too. Embracing. Letting go of all the preconceived notions you may have of what the “perfect house” or “perfect room” looks like…giving up on trying to mimic or out do or compete with all of the inspiring feeds you scroll through on a daily basis, with a pit in your stomach because, even though you know how staged and edited it all is, it still makes you feel inadequate and less than.
Do you know that since we had Henry, we lived with an entire room in our house completely unused because it looked “pretty” and I didn’t want it cluttered with a bunch of baby toys? So we crammed all Henry’s crap into one little section of the house, and plopped him down on one little section of the floor and kept moving him out from underneath the coffee table and media console every time he’d squirm himself stuck underneath. And right next to us the whole time was big beautiful, bright and sunny room… not being used. At all.
Until the other night, when I said “f it”. This isn’t working. I’m turning this room into the cutest, most fun, most serene playroom I can make. The furniture won’t be perfectly placed. And the toys will end up everywhere. And I don’t care. And guess what?! It actually doesn’t look like a day care exploded like I thought it would. I actually love it, and more importantly so does Henry. He spends hours crawling (well scooting), sitting, rolling, exploring and playing with all of his toys laid out and flashing and making loud annoying sounds. I actually have a space I can sit and watch him, and play with him and still feel like I am surrounded by a pretty and serene space that I love and am happy in.
Here are a few things I did to make Henry’s a playroom a space we all love
- I pick out toys that I think are cute and pretty to look at, and mix them in with all the other bright, plastic stuff that inevitably will accumulate. My favorite brand for cool looking toys (that are also very educational) is Skip Hop. Ya, I’m still waiting for them to sponsor me, but until then I’ll keep promoting them for free because I love them that much. We have more of their products than I can count. Including this activity center & , Geo Foam Tiles . Also, this cute chair and amazing tee pee .
- Rotate out toys. I keep half of his toys in his nursery and then every few days or so rotate them so that not every single toy is downstairs in his play room at once and also keeps them new and fresh for him to play with. I find they hold his attention longer this way because they feel like brand new toys to him. He doesn’t need to be surrounded by every single one of his toys at all times.
- I kept my own decor pieces for storage. That pretty cabinet is from Homegoods and now it stores all Henry’s extra toys, blankets, bibs and diapers. You’d never know, right?
- I added in some of my favorite things like my record player and anthro candles.
So basically what I learned by moving some furniture around is… EMBRACE IT. Embrace the beautiful messy cluttered chaos that is life and motherhood. As cliche it all sounds. It’s true. The little toys are all temporary. Every time we pack away something he’s grown out of I cry, not kidding. Do you know it took us a year to get pregnant with Henry? A whole year. And now we have this perfect little human that we prayed for for so long. There will be plenty of time to have our perfect kid free home backs once they are all grown up and in college. And then we will miss it, and want it all back. Even the stupid little turtle on the string that you and your husband have the song it sings memorized and sing along to it all day randomly.
To see what our pretty unused sunroom turned playroom used to look like visit this post here. There’s also more on my IG page @mysunsetavenue. Do you like it better before or now? I think we all know my answer.
And leave me some comments. Tell me if you think I’m crazy about getting all worked up about moving a couch and a table around 
Love, Layla