Last month, my youngest turned seven. And for the first time ever, her birthday list included not just toys, but other items too. Like a trip to get hers ears pierced (still unplanned), and a bedroom makeover.
A bedroom makeover? My youngest daughter is only in first grade. What did she care about curtains and comforters and rugs?
So I asked her. “You know, changing paint and curtains is a lot of work. What’s wrong with your room? What don’t you like about it?”
She huffed, then brought me upstairs and pointed. “That! The bunnies! They’re so babyish! I hate them now.”
I frowned as she pointed to the cling-on Peter Rabbit mural that had adorned her room since before she’d been born.
“You don’t like the bunnies anymore?”
She shook her head. “Not at all.”
Slowly, I nodded as I took in the final remnant of our nursery. Logically, I could see her point. The bunnies were babyish. And yet picturing that wall without the mural made my eyes water.
Thirteen years ago, while living in Stamford, we’d purchased the mural while awaiting the birth of our firstborn daughter. Having suffered two miscarriages before that pregnancy, I’d decided the nursery design for our rainbow baby was very important. She was so wanted, so loved, that I wanted to bring her home to a room that looked like one of the designer nurseries I’d seen online, perfectly coordinated with complementary rugs and sheets and curtains. After scouring the internet, we’d decided on a Peter Rabbit theme, a nod to our mutual loves of animals and classic children’s literature.
Only at the time, my husband had been in his third year of law school, and every bit of my salary was going toward the mortgage and the expenses we’d incurred back when we were a two-income household. There wasn’t much money left for color-coordinated décor.
Yet undeterred, I decided to move forward anyway. I scoured Craigslist for a used rocking chair. Found a furniture store in New York that would sell us a floor model crib at a discount. And saved up enough money for some light green paint, a polka dot rug, and pale pink curtains.
Then I registered for a set of Pottery Barn Peter Rabbit crib sheets and watched in awe as my vision came to life.
And yet still, every time I walked into the room, I felt like something was missing. The wall behind the crib was so empty. It lacked the warmth and storybook whimsy I’d craved. So I began researching artwork, finally coming across a peel-and-stick mural that was right out of the pages of the Peter Rabbit picture book. The only problem? It cost $200. After all the other expenses, a mountain.
And yet whenever I had time, I would visit the mural online, picturing how it would look on our wall and how it would feel to show it to our new baby.
Again, I started saving money, all the while praying it wouldn’t be discontinued before I could purchase it. And about a month before our daughter’s arrival, I finally reached my goal. The mural was ours.
My dream nursery complete, I spent the last month of my pregnancy sitting in my Craigslist rocker, reading Peter Rabbit to my growing stomach. And then, once our daughter was here, every night I would point out the different characters on the mural to her, and we’d say goodnight to them.
When she learned to talk, she began doing this herself, saying goodnight to each bunny before jumping into bed.
When we moved to our current house a few years later, we took the mural down and hung it in her new room so the tradition could continue. And right around the time my oldest stopped talking to her bunnies, I found out I was pregnant with my third. As I moved my big girl out of the nursery, I was elated. The mural could stay! Our tradition would live on.
And it did, for seven more years.
For the entire time I have been a mother, that mural has hung in our homes, bringing warmth, happiness, and a reminder of those precious years of infancy and toddlerhood.
But now we are a big-kid family. There are no more babies, no more cribs or pack ‘n plays tucked away in the attic. I knew my youngest was right. It was time for the mural to go.
Yet as I write this, the mural still hangs, its days as limited as the delivery time it will take for new curtains to reach our house.
I know it will be hard to say goodbye. But I also hope I can look at our mural’s departure with gratitude, for all the years of memories it gave us, for the three healthy and happy big kids who are still safely tucked in our house’s walls. And that I can look to yet another new phase with the excitement for all that’s left to come.
