#17 - But This Is No Cherry Tree Lane

Motherhood - it's a constant battle of:

Oh, Just Let Them Be Creative! What's a little garbage all over the floor?  Big deal that all of the pillows are in a pile and all 8,000 stuffed animals are on the living room floor. Those stuffed animals are so real to them.  Get them MORE animals, they LOVE those animals. Give them more recyclables, save the empty boxes.  It's a train! It's a car!  It's a treasure chest! Give them scotch tape, give them reams of paper, give them scraps and let them BUILD.  Let them imagine. Let them play!  Give them creative FREEDOM.  They're only little once.  Let them build castles now.  Someday, you'll wish you had 70 million tiny little items underfoot.  Yes, you can take my quilt outside and leave it out there for 3 days until it gets rained on and muddy.  I won't care because at least you had fun and you played in nature.

VS.

Oh Nuh-Uh, Not Again! I Have to Vacuum The Floor But I Can't Even See the Floor and No You Can't Have a Quilt because I Just Washed and Finally Put that Other Muddy One Away! Put your junk away. Stop leaving scraps of paper on my floor. NO! YOU CAN'T DIG IN THE RECYCLING BIN. No, Matt, please for the love of all that is holy, do not give him a piece of scrap wood!  It'll be on the floor and I'll break my toes on it and his room is already full of scrap wood that's "special" because Daddy gave it to him (Uncle Josh, I'm lookin' at you, too.  There's a special scrap of something or other in his room somewhere with your name attached.)  No, you can't save the glass bottle.  Stop dragging your stuff to the living room. You want all 4 kitchen chairs? WHY? NO! I need one.  No you can use my blue yoga mat for water, you'll never put it away! You want me to get what down from the closet?  YOU ALREADY HAVE EVERYTHING ELSE OUT!? Do you really have to set up a preschool in here?  I can't even see the T.V. Ok, but you're going to have to take it all back to your room in THRITYMINUTESANDIMEANIT!
 

Yesterday

My brain is continually (and I'm talking every 15 minutes, not even every few days!) flipping back and forth from wanting everything to be spit-spot to not even putting up a fight because it's not really necessary to be uptight about kid messes.

One of the major, major, MAJOR perks that the kids are looking forward to is having a family room.

All three of our kids play BIG.  I think most kids are this way.  They don't just get out a set of toys and play and then put it away.  They combine all of their sets of toys and make this entirely new adventure by putting together everything they own into some giant land.  And the best place for them to build their giant land is in the living room.  It's the biggest and most wide open.  I have told them time and again that if they set things up in their rooms, they can leave it up longer.  But the draw of the larger space is too much for them and they continually set things up in the living room anyway. 

The current "house rule," which is a very loosely enforced one, is that they are allowed to set things up in the living room, but if they do, it must be taken down before they go to bed.  The reason this is loosely enforced is because they make really cool things.  I'm a sucker for a giant pile of imagination, and when they spend hours creating a preschool, or a store, or a village or a monster truck rally, and then plead with me, "Mom, we worked so hard on this and we want to play it again tomorrow.  Nobody's coming over, can't we just leave it out?!" I cave.  Every time.  (They're onto me. I know it.)

 I might have let it slip in a weak moment that it'll be really cool to have a family room because then they can leave stuff out even longer.

And they are banking on that. 

And I'm shaking in my boots because when I said longer I actually meant longer than house rules (put it away at bedtime!), but I fail at house rules and so now they think longer is l-o-n-g-e-r than already too long.  They have even told their friends and now the rumor is out, and they all think they can leave things up for months! LITERALLY.  And I just haven't had the heart to tell them that they can't take over the entire house with stuffed animals and dining room chairs.  So, here's hoping each kid having their own room will give me an easy out.  I'm thinking they'll have more space to play in their bedrooms and they won't have to conquer a main living area so frequently or so thoroughly.

When the framing was finished, the dust hadn't even settled.  The framers hadn't even left the driveway and they were already saying, "It's done! Mom said we can play in it?  Let's go!  Gather the furs, gather the robes and old phones.  I'll meet you upstairs!"

"Dad! Can we put nails in the wood to hang our stuff?"

Try to say no to their enthusiasm.  They were ready to move in instantly. And they did.

Yes, those are coyotes.  We are a home with taxidermy.  It's just life in the fast lane.  Coyotes are a nuisance, so it's either they go or a farmer gets his cows munched or a dog "runs away"...  So, coyote furs.  In their office.  Of all the possessions to drag upstairs...

His and Hers Offices on the left and right

They took all of those things upstairs and played Office for days and days.  Those pictures are all from a few weeks ago.  They can't play in there anymore because it's currently full of HVAC and plumbing materials.  But, I still find remnants because naturally, I didn't make them clean any of it up. 

This is our little temporary door from the addition to our house.  We call it our gnome door. The entire opening to the new family room will include what's open in the picture and everything to the right of it, including more that isn't shown in the pic.  And our kitchen won't look like that when you step into the existing house.  You'll be able to see straight through to the front door instead of stepping in to the laundry/make-shift pantry/dusty behind the fridge zone. 

Once that wall comes down...they're going to love using the family room for all of their Big Play. And I'm going to half love it and half hate it, but I suppose I'll let them leave it up...their enthusiasm will win me over.  Mary Poppins wouldn't approve, but I'm okay with that.