Kids live here

Today's been a lovely lazy day at our house. While our family is a family of "do-ers and go-ers" we also very much enjoy to just be home with each other. I love our home, and was thinking today about how a house reflects the interests of the occupiers. Several times today I caught myself admiring the evidence of our interests, and all I could think was, "Kids live here."

I noted some of my noticings below. Some are funny, others are odd, and some resulted in a mental cleaning list.

- I always wanted the T.V. to be in an armoire so it could be closed in and out of sight, so when we bought new livingroom furniture five years ago, we bought a big armoire to hold the T.V. with big doors that enclose it. Well, those doors now stay open, and are pulled all the way back on the hinge. This is for two reasons: 1.) When Emily is dancing around to music in the livingroom, she likes to see her reflection in the screen and 2.) Eli likes to wait for Elsie to stand in front of the T.V. and then close the doors on her head.

- Our eat-in kitchen is a toy/sitting room. Scott and I have two chairs in the corners, and toys line the walls in big toy furniture bins. This screams "kids live here."

- Smudges. There are smudges all over, and no matter how often I clean, they always return. Some smudges to note are the twins' mouth and nose smudges on both the storm door in the front, and the french doors to the backyard. Other smudges are the snot smudges that are smeared on the "time-out" wall. It took me forever to figure out where the glossy marks on the wall were coming from until one day when Emily was in time out. She was sitting cross-legged and rocking on her legs from side to side, wiping her snotty nose from one end to another. Gross? Yes. And certainly an indication that kids do in fact live here.

- The tub in the upstairs bathroom is full of toys. Never mind the giant giraffe painted on the wall.

- There is whole milk in the refrigerator. I don't know who else drinks this stuff. Nasty gross, but somehow my babies love it.

- In our backyard we have a swing set/structure with a slide, a trampoline, and baby ladder and slide, a water table, a sprinkler mat for the babies, a sandbox, and two plastic picnic tables. It looks like a Little Tykes Factory threw up back there, but our kids love it!

- There's a mini-van parked out in front.

- We have very little art hanging on the walls. Instead we have lots of pictures of our kids. We like it this way.

- Every cabinet requires a certain skill to open. Sometimes the potential opener has to press down on a hidden tab, and other times a magnet is required to retrieve the contents of the cabinet.

- And finally, you can tell kids live here because of the sounds. Sometimes its not good sounds, like crying, fussiness, or a parent at the end of a fuse. But most of the time its baby babble, giggling, or the days events being told by Emily. I think our house has good sounds. As I type right now I hear Scott through the baby monitor. Eli is talking babble to him, while Elsie fusses away. He is going back and forth between making silly sounds to Eli, and making comforting sounds to Elsie. Our house definitely indicates that kids live here.