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
