I’ve always loved interior design. I could watch home makeover shows or sift through decor magazines for hours. When I’m rich, I will spend money on dog rescue organizations, breast cancer philanthropies, and buy a few different homes to decorate. Hey, at least I listed the charitable work first!!

I’ve narrowed down the colors based on the crib bedding I picked out at Pottery Barn Baby. Looks like we’re going with a pink and green theme with splashes of creamy yellow. My decor taste tends to be feminine but not baby-ish (I know, I know, we’re having a baby, but no duckies or teddy bears for me). I like a more vintage and girly style so the odds and ends that fill up the room will probably be in that category.

Anyway, I’ve been daydreaming about decorating the baby’s nursery since we found out about the pregnancy. And now that it’s finally happening, I’m frozen in my tracks.

We can’t do much until we paint first. I had an idea in my head that we would paint the walls a light, butter yellow and toss in an accent color on the crib’s wall and paint it light pink. Easy enough, right?

So imagine my panic attack when I walked into the Lowes paint department and hyperventilated over the zillions of swatches that lined the walls. Choosing few handfuls of paint samples was like choosing which baby to save in a fire: the furry one or the human one. Painful! But, somehow, with my husband’s help and the opinion of the tattooed paint dude who was probably so over me, I walked out with 2 kinds of yellows and 4 kinds of pinks.

On Sunday, I braved the intimidation of painting the walls with the sample colors to see how they look in real life.

Verdict? I still dont know!! I kind of like them all in different ways. And it’s hard not to judge them based on their names. The first one that’s darker is called Pink Ruffle! I’m obsessed with both those words!! Pink is my favorite color and ruffle is how all my clothes should be adorned. And then there’s one called Baby Blush. I mean, isn’t that just too apropos?? How do I not read into the names and look at only the colors? It’s like going to the nail salon; I dare you to pick up an O.P.I. polish color and NOT read the punny name on the bottom of the bottle. Double dare you!

And Bryan and Princeton were of no help as I strategized the sample-paint job. They relaxed and made fun of me for agonizing over each hue.

No, no, I kid. Bryan was very helpful and gave his two cents for what worked and what didn’t. Princeton looked at me like, “What are you crazy? I’m colorblind, crazy, hormonal lady!”

For three of the walls, I think we’re going with Creamy Oat (again, reading into the name, but oats are gluten-free, so this is a healthy shade for a paint, right?), and the accent wall will be either Tea Rose or Baby Blush. I keep stressing about making the right choice and if it will look okay on such wide and high walls and if the bedding will match or will it be too matchy-matchy and will it go against the resale value of the house when we want to sell one day and then I start breathing heavily and breaking out into a sweat and wishing my unborn daughter could send me a sign about her color preference since, after all, it is her room…

…and then Bryan reminds me it’s just paint and it’s not permanent and we can always paint over it. True, yes, but then he’d probably want to kill me.

So, I think we’ll just go for it because apparently, when it comes to motherhood, that’s the name of the game.