Jelly Mom™:This Old House Has Children
This Old House Has Children
©Lisa Barker
My house is old, it creaks and moans like my aging body and aching bones. It needs new cabinets, flooring and paint. I could use a lift myself but you know I ain’t, because my house is like my soul, aged and accented by life’s toll. What seems not new to some who look is really just a sacred book.
The knicks and scratches and carpet stains are just clear proof of labor pains. Just like the stretch marks on my abdomen, my house has borne all my children. There’s more than toys sprawled on the floor, there’s creaking, crooked screenless doors. Weeds grow in the garden, too, our little house is no longer new.
It’ll never show in magazines with fresh painted walls and color schemes. Our walls have handprints, smudges and crayon the surest signs of children land. Here and there a hole or two, a sagging sofa that once was blue but now is covered with a stylish throw, the very first thing to go when in come the children to bounce, bounce, bounce. We’re not a museum we’re a house.
Bikes out on the patchy lawn, squiggly hopscotch in the driveway drawn. A basket ball hoop and one crushed rose. I told those kids to be careful with those!
Fingerprints around all the doors, a leak or two when it pours. Windows wiggled off the track, artwork on the wall is tacked. Crooked pictures on the wall do hang. I’m overridden by a noisy gang! They bustle through the house from dawn to dusk, cleaning and repairs are surely a must.
But all these woes must take a number, it’s my children’s hearts and minds and wonder that are number one to their happy mother…I really doubt I’d like my druthers.
I sometimes pine for an immaculate house; when I scrub the floors and walls I grouse. But the reality is plain to see, if I had that no children would be. I’d be all alone with pretty stuff, temporal trappings and mindless fluff.
So, moms, when you get down and wonder why your home will never ever fly and pass inspection by the stylish kind, take a moment to unwind. And remember that someday soon, you’ll have all the time to clean each room. Off to college and their own new lives your children will leave before your very eyes.
Enjoy them while they’re still at home and maybe one day when they’re grown a knock on the door you’ll rush to greet the happy grandchildren at your feet. And then your house will never know what it’s like to live where children never go. Fingerprints and tipped over cups…God has blessed you so very much!
LISA BARKER of Greenfield is a syndicated humor columnist and mom of five. Her “Jelly Mom” column appears Monday in Living. Barker’s latest book is “Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane … Doesn’t Mean You Are A Bad Parent!” See http://www.jellymom.com/ for more information.
Used With Permission
