I just kept repeating to myself, "You are not a hopeless klutz. You will not mess this up. It is only baby wall decals, not brain surgery. You can do this." However, I still had my doubts. Even though for a normal person (and all my co-workers) applying baby wall decals is a simple and pleasurable task, for me, it was a source of intense stress. You may be wondering how I am able to hold down a job at a wall decal company; to put it bluntly, I am a bean counter, not a decal designer. If you were to take a look inside my house, you'd never know that I was an accountant by trade; I guess that all my exactness and attention to detail are used up at work.

Before getting married, an old hand-me-down comforter draped over my blow-up mattress and a few movie posters were thumb tacked to the walls. My decorating skills are so poor that I had let my mother decorate my husband's and my first home. However, after finding out that I was pregnant with our first child, I knew that I would feel like a failure if I didn't decorate the nursery myself. What mother wants to tell her child, "No, Mommy didn't have what it took to decorate your first room, so I let Grandmamma do it instead."  In spite of my desire to decorate baby's room, I had no inspiration. Each day after getting home from work, I walked into the nursery-to-be, stared at the bare walls, and started to cry for fear of bringing our baby home from the hospital to four white walls.

While sitting in the waiting room during a routine pregnancy visit, I picked up a magazine featuring an article on how the nursery colors and dcor a mother chooses can help her baby's brain development. During the next two hours while I waited to see my doctor, I stewed over the article's message. I became convinced that if I let my daughter sleep in a stark white room, there would be nothing to stimulate her brain. I worried that my daughter might just grow up to compete on reality shows for a living, have so little sense of identity that she would impulsively get tattoos, or decide to join the circus on a whim. Or even worse, would she live with us until she was 40 and never be able to make a decision on her own? Even though I knew my thoughts were becoming irrational, I couldn't calm down until my sweet baby girl had a beautifully decorated nursery.

That night over dinner, I described my doctor's office magazine article induced fears to my husband. He suggested I just close my eyes and ask myself what kind of room I would have liked when I was a little girl. The answer was easy: everything butterflies! My parents had been certain I would be a boy; so, my room had been blue and my bedding featured spaceships and aliens. After bringing home a baby girl from the hospital, my parents hastily painted clouds and rainbows on the walls in an attempt to neutralize the boyish nursery theme. When I was three, I tried to draw butterflies on the walls and took a pair of scissors to the spaceship quilt; however, these harmless attempts to express my desire for femininity merely landed me in time out.

Remembering back to this event, I quickly went online. A brightly colored butterfly baby wall decal caught my eye. Next, I selected pink paint and linens to match. Fast forward two weeks. My husband had applied a fresh coat of pastel pink paint to the nursery walls. One of my coworkers graciously had made me an assortment of butterfly baby wall decals out of various colors I had selected. I timidly stood facing the walls with a baby wall decal in hand; although my boss had explained and demonstrated the simple application process, I was still terrified I'd somehow mess up. Then it dawned on me: butterflies can fly any way they want!

The decals applied easily to the pink walls and appeared to leap from the crib and fly from above the changing table. I waddled a small victory lap around the nursery proud of my success. I just knew that my daughter would love her adorable room. If I of all people can decorate a nursery, I am convinced that with the help of baby wall decals, anyone can!