Team Lua

My last post really got me thinking about priorities for our family and those to families around us. Obviously I can only speak for my family, since saying anything about how other families live would be making assumptions, which is what I just stated drove me batty. So my comments and observations in the rest of this post are about how I would feel in any given situation and not neccessarily of those living it. I hope that makes sense.

We live in a very nice house in a wonderful neighborhood. Our dream house honestly, unless we were suddenly to win the lotto. Some rooms in our house are nicely put together with furniture that looks like it belongs there, while other rooms have a mish-mash of furniture and somedays look like Toys r' Us has thrown up in it. Our walls are white, something that recently has been driving me nuts, but repainting a house this size would cost lots of money - money we don't have. I suppose I could always do one room at a time, but I tend to be an "all or nothing" type of person.

We recently went over to a friends' house which is honestly immaculate. Now I know we all clean up before having company over, but this was different. You could tell they lived this way. And when it's somebody without kids or with older kids it doesn't really bother me because the need for a bunch of little toys isn't there. But these people have kids similar in age to our oldests, so I'll admit it, I was jealous. How could their entire downstairs be void of little kid toys? Our house looked better when the playroom was upstairs (we had to move it downstairs when we had Jack), but it was never like this.

After sleeping on it for a night (and still waking up a bit jealous) I really got to thinking - I don't really want a house like that. Sure, it would be nice for when company came over for them not trip over toys, but for the day to day stuff around here, I want my kids to know it's their home too. That they can pull toys out during the day and play with them. That for us, this house is a home.

But we've seen the flip side of this too - where a house looks like it's been taken over by the kids and you can't find anything adult in the room. Where counters and tables are covered in papers, games, crayons, etc and you can't quite figure out where they actually eat. Or sit. Where there isn't a single room that looks like it actually belongs. And I couldn't live in a house like that either.

So for me it's trying to find the right balance that allows the kids to be still be kids and allows me to not absolutely go nuts with the clutter and chaos. There are simple things we do each day that helps to accomplish that, I think. Rooms are picked up and beds are made every day. For me walking into a room with a made bed makes the entire room look nicer. Toys are played with and messes are made, but the family room is picked up before bed. And my biggest pet peeve - our center island. Sure it gets covered during mealtimes, but keeping it cleared off for the majority of the day helps me to keep my sanity. Being able to look over and see a clean kitchen table and the clean center island allows me to sit down and watch tv with my husband at the end of day without feeling like hurting somebody.

There are still days where I wish all of our furniture was bought for this house, where we had some actual color on the walls, where we actually had that built in for our tv in our family room and where it didn't look like we owned a toy store. But I also know that there will a time in the not so distant future where we'll probably have all that - a clean house, with matching furniture and no toys. And no noise. And we'll be wishing to have it all back.