It was a cold December day right after Christmas. My oldest son had graduated from rocking on his hands and knees to a full crawl a couple weeks before. Up until this day he was perfectly happy to crawl laps around our first floor without touching anything, showing off his newfound skill.
But then suddenly that just wasn't enough for him. Nothing was off-limits, nothing was safe. If our house was a dodgeball game, the elementary school gym teacher had just blown her whistle and shouted "FREE FOR ALL!"
That night my husband came home to every lamp and knick-knack we owned along with most of our furniture piled in the garage. I'm pretty sure I was sprawled out on the couch, one of the few items that survived the day, with my head spinning.
G chose his words slowly and carefully, "Do I want to know why everything is in the garage?"
"That is everything GD knocked over or tried to climb today," I told him, still bewildered at the destruction our 7-month-old caused. Then I babbled and cried about how I couldn't control our baby and how I was failing as a mother and how I just wanted to get rid of all our belongings and pad every surface.
G likes to tell this story to first-time parents. I don't think he's trying to scare them, just let them know they're not alone when their child starts climbing the curtains and repelling off the furniture. And he thinks the whole scene that day was funny.
That day marked a big turning point in my home decor philosophy. I had long been a collector of quirky secondhand furniture, lamps, and knick-knacks. Throughout our home you could find end tables made completely from mirrors, lampshades with large dangling beads, giant glass flower lamps, and a varied assortment of glass bowls and vases. The "flea market curiosities" decorating phase of my life came to an abrupt end. Having a mobile child quickly turned me from a clutter-collector to a clutter-minimizer; from a displayer of unique and artistic furniture to a displayer of only softly padded and absolutely essential furniture; from an antique glassware enthusiast to shatter-proof plastic enthusiast.
I was kind of like one of those end-of-the-year furniture sale commercials, where the announcer echos, "EVERYTHING MUST GO!" Our house was stripped down to the essentials, and everything that was deemed worthy to stay was kept 42 inches or higher off the ground.
Well, except toys. Toys started to accumulate everywhere.
Over the course of the past five years I have moved a lot of items onto new lives at thrift stores throughout the area. I tend to be sentimental; there is a hoarding gene deeply embedded into my DNA. I look at things in our perpetual donation pile and think, "But it could be worth something someday!" But then I stop and consider the likelihood that it will even survive to that ambiguous someday of worthwhileness, and how much space it will take up in the meantime (which would be inefficient) and the survival instinct that is hard-wired into all humans overshadows the hoarder in me. After all, humans may not have survived for thousands of years had we kept heavy and breakable knick-knacks within the reach of younger generations of our species. And with that reasoning off goes another diaper box of dangerous items to the nearest Goodwill.
This hardly means our home is empty. Just that the decor is much differently than our pre-children years. The quirky, breakable, sharp-edged furniture has been replaced with tractors, farm set-ups, Legos, monster trucks, and plastic food. And more Legos and more tractors. Every empty square-inch of carpet is now being converted to farm land. And Lego building space. The glass collection has been replaced with a growing collection of security items. And Legos. The interesting knick-knacks have been replaced with items we're keeping out of the baby's reach. And Legos.
Have I mentioned there are Legos everywhere?
However, one large and exceedingly dangerous item managed to stick around through the birth of three kids and subsequent furniture reductions. . Surprisingly my curio cabinet full of antique glass has stayed intact (well...for the most part) and not hurt anyone (too badly) over the past five years.
I'm not saying it's never been licked. Or had chocolate smeared all over it. Or stubbed numerous toes.
It has just never came crashing down into a pile of glass as the kids go barrelling through the house.
Yet.
And let me tell you, that potentially horrifying scene has played over and over in my head.
It really is a miracle that it never has happened in real life, considering how many laps the boys run by it in a day and how many items have been thrown off the upstairs landing onto it.
We decided we were really pushing our luck.
In a family of little kids and varied livestock, the big glass structure just really didn't fit in anymore. The curio cabinet was the first thing you saw when you entered the house. I'm sure to visitors it was a strange sight after dodging the manure on the sidewalk. I used to live the way the light reflected off the glass, but where I used to see the appealing reflection of light, all I see now is the potential for head injuries and lacerations. Why didn't my former self start a shatter-proof plastic sippy cup collection? (Well, I guess I do have a rather large one of those now, and I display it in every room of the house.)
So one day several weeks ago, as my toddler wandered through the house and attempted to walk right through the curio cabinet into another dimension, we decided that we have exceeded the number of children that can safely coexist with a glass collection and curio cabinet in a high-traffic area and that they should be removed before they shattered into a million razor-sharp death stars.
The curio cabinet was listed on Craigslist and found a new home with a retired gentleman who was going to use it to house his model train and tractor collection. He agreed that it was not an ideal piece of furniture to have in a house full of kids and entertained the boys with a story of how he sliced his arm on a glass coffee table as a kid. (Sometimes it's fun to do Craigslist deals just to meet new people).
I was slightly sad to see it go and was wondering what we would do to fill the space it vacated. Maybe a hall tree, or some large photos on the wall....
We didn't have to wonder long. Within 24 hours it had been replaced with an airport and a wigwam village.
