Toddler and New Couch = Oxymoronic

I have a beautiful couch and loveseat made of the prettiest red/tan striped cotton – it is quintessential cottage. Only problem is after three years it has become quite faded due to all the washings. And why have I had to wash it so much? Because my three year old insists on being near or on it only when he is dirty. I have been so dismayed by the faded arms I convinced my husband to let me buy a new couch with slipcovers. My rationale: he just bought a plasma tv. No really – I believed if I could have a couch with washable slipcovers in a light color I would never again have to be dismayed by an unattractive seating arrangement. Was I ever wrong.

I remember the day it arrived. I was at work so I asked my husband to take a picture and send it to me. He sent me a picture with our toddler standing next to it… I wanted to scream “get the baby away from the couch,” but I couldn’t because I was at work and might scare the patients. It was a foreboding sign. I reminded myself “the covers are washable, the covers are washable…” – it became my mantra.

My beautiful new slip covered couch arrived less than a week ago and it has already sustained “a mark.” Not just any mark, but a pen mark. I tried to spot clean it, but all that did was leave a really clean spot. You see, our new couch was a floor model and we got it at a huge discount (as well as its matching smaller sofa – it only made sense to buy the smaller one too). So it had been sitting on the store floor accumulating dust and debris so when I cleaned the “spot” it just made us realize how clean the whole couch wasn’t. It didn’t make me feel any better about the toddler damage, but it made me realize how foolish my idea was to have a light colored (off white to be exact) couch with a miniature wrecking machine running around our house with a slobbering dog in tow.