Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 30, 1994 TAG: 9407020007
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Beth Macy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
I don't have one of those rooms in my house where no one's allowed to sit. Just six years ago, I fashioned a couch from an old twin-bed mattress and box springs, covered with a blanket I hauled back from Tijuana in a van full of sweaty tourists.
The ``look,'' as I like to call it, was very haute couture, which is French for: ``hides red wine stains nicely.''
At my first reporting job in Columbus, Ohio, an anonymous reader once sent me a postcard with typed capital letters: ``YOU USED THE WORD `DRAPES' IN A STORY RECENTLY! `DRAPES' IS A VERY LOW-CLASS WORD. NEXT TIME USE `WINDOW TREATMENTS'!!!''
I had never heard of ``window treatments.'' In fact, at the time I thought that a certain ratio of Rolling Stone magazines to flattened-out Miller Lite cans made an excellent ``floor covering'' - which is designer-speak for ``shag-carpet substitute.''
Tastes change - thank goodness - and so do budgets, thank you God. The salespeople at Grand Piano & Furniture no longer think the only reason I come in is for a free baby Coke.
In a couple of years, I've gone from Dorm Decor to Elle Decor (wannabe - anyway), and I've developed a serious disdain for clutter. I don't just shop at yard sales anymore, I go to antique stores, too.
So you can imagine what a clashing effect all the new Plastic Baby Items from Hell have had on my home-interior palette.
My living room has turned from eclectic to electric.
A jungle gym of Sesame Street characters grows out of the corner where my handmade gray-and-mauve magazine basket used to be.
Except for when the gym's in actual use, in which case it's in the middle of my new area rug - Bert, Ernie and Grover being batted around on their swings; Big Bird surveying the scene from above, his battery-operated eyes shifting back and forth like a mystery-flick Mona Lisa.
The crowning feature of this piece is the switch control on the back. One switch turns on Big Bird's eyes, which sound like windshield wipers on a Greyhound. The other - and this is only used when we need to pull out the big guns - plays ``Somewhere Over the Rainbow.''
``A soothing lullabye,'' the box promised, without actually naming what song the thing played. We were scared we'd have yet another version of ``Brahms' Lullabye'' stuck in our house - and in our heads - but this instrumental version of Judy Garland's song, turns out, is EVEN WORSE.
More grating than Muzak and louder than those car stereos thumping six blocks away, this item is our son's favorite.
Another favorite, and a real life-saver for those rare times when we venture out to a restaurant (or when some poor sap dares to dine in with us), is the bouncy seat - a.k.a. Summer seat; a.k.a. the chair so deceivingly big, you can't imagine how it takes up the entire trunk of your car.
For a while, the bouncy seat hung out on our dining room table, eliminating the need for a centerpiece. But recently we've wised up, creating what we call ``Plastic Baby Item Centers.''
This means that the bouncy chair, if tipped upside-down at a precise angle, will partially fit into the stroller, where we also keep the diaper bag, the two pacifiers he won't take, the cheap Kermit the Frog rattle he loves, the expensive ``child-development'' rattle that bores him, and his favorite piece of fabric to hold onto and gum - a white-silk camisole from Victoria's Secret.
When we need to use the stroller, the items from that particular Plastic Baby Item Center get dumped onto the dining room table - again, eliminating the need for a centerpiece.
Though the bouncy seat is large enough, it's a mousetrap compared to our Graco Baby Swing (mottos: ``Do not leave child unattended, even though that's exactly why you bought the stupid thing'' and ``Assembly suggested, cusswords required'').
I'm just glad it was my mom, not me, who shelled out the $80 bucks for this battery-powered beast - even if she did wait outside in the car while I jousted my way through the aisles of Baby Superstore alone, battling boxes of breast pumps, Diaper Genies and rainbow bumper pads.
Our son has sat quietly in the swing long enough for me to take a picture of him to mail to my mom. Once. And yet it's four times as big as the box we bought it in - which got thrown away, eliminating the possibility of returning it for cash after Mom left town.
Our neighbor across the street stifled a smug grin a few weeks ago when we told her about the new Shaker-style coffee table I picked out for my birthday, the kind that leaves water marks if you fall asleep on the couch halfway through your bottle of beer. (Horrors! We've become COASTER PEOPLE!)
An interior designer with two small children, she very politely described her pockmarked pine coffee table, explaining how her children will be much older - like, in college - before she undertakes a replacement purchase.
We slunk back to our house with that familiar dumb-parent feeling. Luckily, Big Bird and cast were there waiting to cheer us up with ``Somewhere Over the Rainbow,'' which gave me an idea: If we buy two Sesame Street jungle gyms and a big piece of non-toxic plastic to strap over them, we could ditch the table and coasters, creating both a Plastic Baby Item Center and a place to let your beer warm.
Really, I think it would be tres chic.
That's French parent-speak for: ``Comes clean with a Baby Wipe.''
Beth Macy, a features department staff writer, is designing a new line of baby products in olive green, mauve and - her personal favorite - taupe. Her column runs Thursdays.
by CNB