Big Boy Room

We moved into this house nearly ten years ago, when Wil had just started first grade. We decorated his room accordingly - sports posters, NBA duvet covers, red bunk bed (which were hand-me-downs), toys, trucks, stuffed animals, a bookshelf full of picture books, a tub full of musical instruments, one of costumes, and a third of sports equipment. About a year or so ago I finally got rid of most of the toys, some of the stuffed animals (you don't even want to know how many he had "living" on the top bunk), all of the costumes and musical instruments. I put a mini trampoline in their place on the floor, and other than that, there's been no updating.

My boy turns seventeen in a little over two weeks. I am driving STM, Woohoo, and poor, sweet Nancy crazy with my obsession of making over his room by that day. I don't know what it is about that number, but that coupled with the fact he'll be a junior in high school, I literally cannot take it any longer. I've spent hours upon hours shopping on line for a duvet cover that will say, if not "grown up," at least not "child." Having found one he and I both like, I then spent more hours finding the best price. I've selected a bed frame and dresser at IKEA, and have Nancy going to Costco multiple times to get me sheets, pillows, and yes, even a mattress. I want Wil to move up to a queen bed, now that he's 6 feet tall and going up. I am way too "frugal" to join Costco myself, so instead, I have Nancy on a wild goose chase, and she even has to look at multiple links I send her a day to weigh in on everything from paint colors to you-name-it, no detail too minute to bog her down with it!

Wil is going to live in his room, in our house, for many a year. That is fine. I am good with that, and in fact, am nowhere near ready to think of a day where that isn't the case. But as I walk by his room every day about a million times to go down or up the stairs, I want to see a room that says where he is and where he's going - not hold us in the past. Whether or not he is a typical young adult, he is growing older and he is out-growing little boy things, little boy looks, the little boy that moved into this house ten years ago. Making the room different won't make him different, but it will make me different.