The sticker wall
June 3, 2015
Our front door opens into a hallway that runs between the living room and the kitchen.
It’s a setup in which visitors are belched into the middle of our house the moment they walk in the door.
The hallway is defined on one side by the open living room.
It is separated from the kitchen by a half wall with a counter that serves as a catch-all for every piece of paper, sticky note, cell phone, coin, rock, button, and whatever other treasure our two sons pick up along the way.
Along this wall is where the family deposits our shoes at the end of the day.
On the wall between the shoes and the catch-all counter there is dead space that is highly offensive to toddlers.
It is on this wall that both of our toddlers have stuck any stickers in their possession.
We repainted a few years ago, when our older son was six.
He had outgrown the urge to stick stickers to the half wall, and our younger son was an infant. And so we had a few blessed months where the only offensive thing about the half wall was the mess that framed it.
The wall itself was pristine.
That all changed when our younger son started walking.
Young children spend a lot of time in doctor’s offices. And what do children get at doctor’s offices?
Stickers.
Not to mention all the stickers that arrive in the mail as promotional material, stickers given in valentines and birthday cards, and stickers given by grocery store clerks.
I can honestly say that I can only remember actually purchasing stickers two or three times since becoming a parent.
And yet, there is never a shortage of stickers at our house.
Last winter when my husband was a stay-at-home dad, the toddler discovered an activity book that had sat dormant on his brother’s bookshelf for several years.
It was a sticker bonanza.
On days when my husband was exhausted from staying up all night with the fussy toddler, when he just wanted to crash on the couch, he’d bring out the sticker book.
My husband would pull off stickers one by one. The toddler beat a path between daddy and the sticker wall. He’d carefully place a sticker, and run back to retrieve another.
This provided entertainment for the toddler and a welcome respite for dad.
Reaction to the sticker wall is mixed.
Some think it is a touching sign of our commitment to our children’s self-expression.
Other’s think it’s just plain laziness, a sign of laissez faire parenting run amok.
In reality, the reason we have stickers all over the hallway wall is the same reason we have an overturned plastic storage bin as a coffee table that is also a rocket ship, nerf gun target, art table, etc.
The reason is profound only in its simplicity.
They are only little once.
Paint is cheap, but time is expensive.
Someday, we’ll pick off all the stickers and repaint.
Someday, we’ll have a real coffee table.
Someday, they’ll be grown, and we’ll miss the mess.
This article first appeared in the Lewistown News-Argus and the Sidney (Mont.) Herald on June 6, 2015.
