A Place of Her Own

A place for stickers, more specifically.

Lou's three, so naturally, stickers are kind of a big deal around here.  Now don't get me wrong, I like stickers as much as the next gal, but a three-year old in possession of a sticker is a potential house destroyer.  Kids with stickers are in desparate need of a place to put them.

This is because, unlike me, Lou doesn't give a damn if the front door is bit sticky from sticker residue.  She thinks my desk would look a lot nicer if I would just decorate with a few stickers.  See, look how great the fish tank looks now that she's jazzed it up!  She couldn't care less if there are stickers wasting away on the floor; never actually removed, simply worn and ground in...  In short, she just really likes stickers, and if she had her way they'd be dotting the entire house.

Unfortunately, this is where we disagree.

I'm trying to let go some of my obsession with cleanliness, however I can't go so far as to let her decorate, willy nilly, with her stickers.  A girl's got to have some standards.

But I have to remember that the stickers are more than just a Made In China glossy picture of the latest princess craze.  This desire to decorate speaks to our inner desire to make a place for ourselves.  So she needs a place for stickers, we all do.  As adults we have paint, gardens, clothes, and real cars as our stickers.  We are constantly defining ourseves to the world through our stickers.  These personalized objects are signs of who we are and what we value.  And right now the things Lou values are:

     1. Princesses- Cinderella's best, but hey, we really like them all
     2. Anything in the pink and purple color spectrum
     3. Fuzzy animals with oversized eyes

Disastrously for Lou, these are not among the things I currently value above all else.

But Lou needs a place of her own, so I've made some concessions.  It started with sheets of construction paper put up on the wall.  One in the playroom for fun stickers, and one in the bathroom for those ones you earn by using the potty.  She's been given a bit more freedom to place stickers, judiciously and under adult supervision, in a few other places that are designated Lou spaces.  And, of course, she can cover her body with stickers all she wants; that shirt you're wearing, go to town!   

I know that she just wants her world to reflect who she is.

And it's my job to help her to do that without stickers.