we’re just getting into the fun stage with edie! she turned 5 months old this week and is getting pretty eager to start her adventures in crawling. it will probably be another month before she’s up on all fours, but for now, she’s having a heck of a time trying! so last week, i took to the living room to make things more baby-friendly to help edie along on her adventures. because when it comes to our decor, i think of the house as a living, breathing space that changes and grows with my children. i removed the coffee table completely, and decided to get a nice plush rug for her to roll around on. i know i just got finished talking about some of my previous rug mistakes, but when i saw this plush masterpiece in light colors, i had to have it. i know it goes against all of my own advice for keeping a house with a toddler and a baby, but if ever there is a rule, i have to break it. even when it’s my own rule!

it arrived in the mail just last week and we all oohed and ahhed as i laid it down in the living room. adam started running around on it and i took off my shoes to feel the softness beneath my feet. but if you so much as look at the thing, it gets dirty, haha! the living room is a well-used space, so i know this rug is going to be experiencing some heavy traffic between adam tracking in dirt from outside, edie drooling all over the place, and a rotating cast of friends and family coming to visit the kids. thankfully, i’ve been working with my friends at stainmaster to keep my beloved rugs clean, so i pulled out my stash of stainmaster rug and carpet cleaners to see what i could do to give this rug the longest life as possible. my current favorite? the high traffic cleaner. this heavy duty foaming cleaner loosens and lifts tracked-in soil, then goes a step further by applying an invisible shield to repel dirt and protect against resoiling. all you have to do is shake the can, spray the foam from about two feet away and spread it around with a sponge or mop, then wait for the foam to dry so you can vacuum to remove loosened dirt and dry foam. i get to keep my pretty rug and the kids get to play on it without giving me a heart attack.

as i’m sure you know, the past couple of years have seen a lot of change around here. it’s been an adjustment getting used to life with a toddler and an infant, on top of settling into our first home together as a family. the place has really started come together decor-wise in recent months, but it hasn’t always been that way. let me tell you a little story: before adam was born, i was never really into home decor. i was into punk as a kid and as i grew older, my various apartments were mostly filled with random thrift store furniture, house plants, half-finished art projects, piles of laundry… i didn’t know a thing about lamps or rugs or accent pieces. but in those last moments before adam was born, my hormones kicked into high gear and i suddenly found myself in a nesting frenzy. i was literally rearranging furniture at 38 weeks pregnant, and in a panic because his nursery wasn’t even finished. and in my rush to get the house perfect for the baby, i made some… interesting design choices. for one, i fell in love with a very stunning (and very expensive) vintage kilim rug with a pale floral pattern. and then adam was born.

shortly after his birth, our doctor referred to him as a “happy spitter,” which was basically a polite way of saying that he was a puking machine. he didn’t have anything medically wrong with him, he wasn’t sick or suffering from reflux or anything, he just puked. a lot. within months, my entire apartment was literally covered in baby puke. and that beautiful pastel rug i was talking about? let’s just say it was a small sacrifice to pay for a happy, healthy baby. fast forward a couple of years and i’ve learned quite a few lessons about decor and housekeeping. for starters, it’s probably a good idea to choose a rug in a more forgiving color scheme and pattern, preferably something that was designed for high traffic areas and lots of messes. we swapped out our beloved vintage rug for indoor/outdoor rugs made of 100% recycled plastic bags! they look like wool, but they do a really good job of repelling dirt, so they require a lot less care than a super absorbent natural fiber. but also, there are such things as cleaners that you can use to clean up messes before they get out of hand. yeah.

enter stainmaster carpet care. we teamed up with the brand to try their line of carpet care products, which are specifically designed to treat stain-resistant, nylon, and polyester carpets and rugs like the ones we now use. they have several different formulas designed to remove tough stains while leaving behind an invisible shield to repel dirt and protect against future stains without sticky residue. those two simple solutions have totally changed the way i react to my little “mess makers” around the house. now when edie spits up or adam drops his food, i’m not stressing myself out over ruined rugs. we simply wipe it up and move one to more important things. which is exactly the type of outlook us mamas need to keep sane and enjoy these precious moments with our little ones before they’re all grown up! oh, and it doesn’t hurt when dad pitches-in and helps us clean our messes, too!