Nursery Themes

Martin:  

A couple of colleagues have been wondering what color and themes we have for Fish's nursery. In truth, one of the reasons Beth and I almost never have a disagreement is that we don't sweat the small stuff, and nursery color is, in our book, small stuff. The nursery is very pale green (more white with a hint of green), as are most of the walls in the house, and will stay that way. Green and yellow are acceptable gender neutral colors, and also the colors of the Oregon Ducks football team and thus very prevalent around the city. If we have a girl we won't be pinkifying her to excess, though I'm sure some pink would be unavoidable.

As for themes, the University of Oregon mascot is the duck, so ducks are definitely in. We have thousands of Pacific Chorus Frogs in the creek in our garden, so frogs are also a strong theme. Indeed Fish will become very used to the Frog Chorus over the coming years, as they have been chirping and burping away from dusk till dawn for several weeks, both in the creeks that crisscross Eugene, and in the prairie wetlands that form a boundary to the west, and do so throughout the mating season around February and March each year.

Once we've discovered Fish's gender we can get more specific with toys and decorations, but we'll try to avoid making this child a Disneykid. Disney is wonderful in its way, but so dominates the toyshelves and children's movies section that we'd like to minimise and alleviate its all-pervading aura. I'm a big fan of Playmobil, a widely available toy that doesn't buy into movie themes characters (as Lego has, for example), but allows the child the freedom to create their own play, and invent their own characters. There's a line of Playmobil 1-2-3 designed for younger children (the main range is aimed at ages 4-14), and I have already bought several sets ready for when Fish catches up to them. Meantime I'm looking forward to playing with them myself  to warm them up.

Winnie the Pooh is one theme where I am happy to accept the Disney input, partly because it's almost unavoidable, but also because Pooh is English. The Pooh characters may have been Disneyfied, but have remained for the most part true to the original stories and illustrations.