my "new" living room.

About a month ago, Iris learned how to get down from the couch by herself. Then, about a week ago she learned that she didn't need my help and instead... well, here's a demonstration! Please ignore the yelling in the background, bad timing! We were watching Howl's Moving Castle during breakfast!

I knew it was only a matter of time before she realized she could get on the couch and then get off on the other end, where the No Baby Zone was. For a long time, we had the ottoman, a blanket and cushions blocking her access to the electronics, shelves of dvds and open outlets for our computers and phones. So this evening, we spent a couple of hours baby proofing. Here is what my living room looks like now!

Yes, our little tree is up and there are already some presents hidden behind it! And yes, that is cardboard covering our electronics. I plan to paint it so at least it will look... sort of pretty? Obviously, we didn't know we were going to be having a baby when we bought furniture. Let me also be honest and say I really dislike our coffee table. It looks like a spacecraft, but without the super cool aliens. It's actually not even the one we initially picked out, but the lady taking our order apparently wrote down the wrong product number. We decided not to bother with the hassle of returning it... definitively a mistake, haha! The glass top shows every little fingerprint and drop of water, and drives me batty.

Iris is very pleased to be allowed over there now and explored every little corner of the space as we renovated. I had to move all the ornaments to the very top of the tree, which looks pretty funny! It's also so nice to be able to walk around the house without stepping over cushions! Anyone have any suggestions for how I should paint our classy cardboard? I'm thinking of going for some sort of enlarged mandala print.