Had to Share!

I am home alone right now, (WOO HOO! ) and as I’m walking through each room I am looking at all the broken items, the writing on the walls, and the empty shelves and containers (because we have to keep things up high). I went to the bathroom and what really got me goin was that we have a toothbrush holder, but we don’t keep our toothbrushes in it because we discovered that our children had been chewing on all of them, scrubbing the floor with them, dropping them in the trash can and best of all, dipping them in the toilet (yes we discovered this a good while AFTER the fact) The final straw was when one of my daycare kiddos flushed a toothbrush down the toilet recently, now we keep them all on the closet. I then look at the toilet paper roll and think how each on of my kids has profusely abused our toilet paper over the past few years, the young ones found joy in unwinding it completely and stuffing it all in the toilet, the older ones have a form of OCD where they just can’t seem to wipe their butts enough! This led me to look at the trash can, of which I remember little miss Hayden got into it and was chewing on an empty tampon container… yep, that’s right, go ahead and gag, I sure did! I turn to the bath, which I recall each one of my kids falling into it fully clothed on several occasions.

I then move onto the bedrooms, where each set of blinds is missing several rows because my kids all seem to go through the phase of ripping them off just for the heck of it. All three bedrooms have writing on the walls and on the hardwood floors, Kyleighs window is still broken from when she threw a book at it during a tantrum (brand new windows mind you).  I look up at Kyleigh’s pretty canopy bed where the bars are bent because my boys “mistook” it for a place to hang. Hayden’s crib has been through all four kids, and there are teeth marks all over the sides from teething babies. One of Kyleigh’s dresser drawers is missing the front piece because she pulled too hard and broke it off. My bed skirt is barely hanging on, completely ripped on the right side where my kids climb onto the bed and pull at it with their feet. I look up at the T.V. in my bedroom and think of the fact that we have been through two Wii remotes and are now on our third because our kids have butter fingers and tempers. Two VHS players have been broken and one DVD player. I go to the boys room, where there door has been missing a door knob for almost two months because the kids locked themselves in the room by slamming the door, thus busting the latch and we had to unscrew it to get them out. My boys mattresses are laying all over the floor because they believe they are meant for jumping rather than sleeping. I look at the fan and think about the fact that this is their third one because my boys treat them as step ladders and not fans.

Next is the living room, of which I have to walk through the hallway full of pen markings that I just can’t seem to get off, and chipped trimming along the walls. ( so hard to look at that when we spent DAYS painting this house before we moved in!) The pretty little collage of pictures I put together on the wall has a nice big empty space in the middle where my “Count your Blessings” picture used to be…Landon knocked it off the wall and shattered it. There is a whole in the wall where the door knob from the front door hits because one of my day care kids ripped the door stopper out of the wall (and broke the trim)  so the door knob gets smashed into the wall daily. My baby swing is sitting in the living room, and where some may look fondly at theirs thinking of the memories of their little ones sleeping so peacefully in it as babies, I recall that each one of my kids has climbed into it and sat on their infant sibling’s face and started swinging. I look at my rug where there are multiple burn holes from the fireplace and over to the lamp that is missing the ball topper that holds the lamp shade on.  My couch is the only thing that has with stood my kids so far…for now.

Then we move onto the kitchen, where my kitchen table is full of paint, hot glue, stickers and many, MANY nicks. The bench cushions are caked in Lord knows what, the walls are chipped and full of more drawings, juice and food. I look at my dishwasher and stove, both of which each child has opened and climbed onto and sat on the doors. I also discovered a plastic toy in the oven one day while heating it up…:P My laundry/computer room is next to the kitchen and my kids have all climbed into the dryer, Landon spilled almost an entire container of laundry detergent on the floor as well as bug spray, and I am staring at a computer screen full of highlighter markings.  And next to me sits a tower of books, half of which have been scribbled on or in, including my Bible.

I could write a book about the damage and craziness that have occurred since I became a mother! I was so unprepared for this part of parenthood, but I have learned to place no value on anything material and to put absolutely no money into our house until they are 10! LOL