Just Can't Measure Up!

I have tried to have Nicholas involved in the whole process of decorating his little sister's room. However, today I don't think I taught him much - except what not to do! With the nursery walls painted pink, I ventured to try to put up a wallpaper border around the top of the room. Yes, I could wait until Stuart got home to help me but I'm pregnant and in the "nesting phase" so I'm just too impatient to wait around for help!

So I talked to Nicholas about how I would measure the walls and cut each strip to length so that I would tackle one wall at a time. Then I showed him how to soak the strip in water to activate the pre-pasted goo on the wallpaper. Of course, he loved dunking it in the water and making a mess! Then I started putting the border up on the wall while he watched. It was very frustrating trying to get the piece to stick to the wall, make sure it was straight, and smooth out the bubbles all by myself. Just as I would get a section perfect, I would have to climb down from the ladder, move the ladder over a few feet, and then sadly watch as all the work I had just done came peeling off the wall. Needless to say, Nicholas got bored with this part and abandoned me. I soon heard the television on in the other room. While I don't usually condone using the TV as a babysitter, I could tell that this would take a while and the little guy really couldn't help me with this part.

I finally learned that once I had a section looking just the way I wanted it, I needed to hold it in place for several minutes to be sure that the paste had set enough to allow me the few minutes I needed to scoot the ladder over and climb back up to keep going. The first wall was just a tiny bit too short but it was in the corner and I knew I could line up the pattern with the next piece so that it didn't show up much. So I measured out the second wall and cut my strip of border. After much frustration, I got it across the entire wall only to find that it was about an inch too short!



This would be harder to hide and although I probably could have winged it, I decided to peel the whole piece off the second wall and start over. Nicholas came to check on me from time to time and he always seemed amazed that I was still working on it. I was amazed at how long it was taking too! I tried to talk to him about persistence to turn it into a teachable moment but he was totally bored with my whole project and didn't seem to care. A few times I called him in to help me if I dropped my smoothing tool or needed him to hand me something else. He is a very good helper. In the end, the border turned out just the way I had wanted it to.



However, I'm afraid Nicholas didn't learn much from me except what not to do when it comes to measuring! Oh yeah, he also learned about some new products from commercials he watched on TV. Later in the day he told me, "Mom, you should get the new Kaboom! It does the hard work for you!" Maybe I can hire him out to be the next spokesman for Kaboom!