A House or a Home

4/28/2016

All of us live in a house, of some kind or another.  A house is just a building, walls, floors, ceilings.  

There is a difference between a house and a home.  I live in a house, but it's actually a home.  A home where people can visit and put their feet up on the furniture.  Where everybody is welcome in the kitchen, even if the dishes aren't done!

Raising all boys, Jeff and I learned to adapt quickly to a barrage of chaos as well as to non-stop messes.  And we survived.  When the boys were young, I had a drawer in the kitchen that held pudding and jello mix boxes.  The boys would take out those boxes and make "tracks" on the kitchen floor while I was cooking.  On more than one occasion when I wasn't watching where I was going, a box of mix would get smashed.  The boys thought this was great fun, but then they didn't have to sweep it all up! The cost of pudding and jello mixes was low at the time, and easily replaced.  I was happy knowing that I knew where the boys were and what they were up to.  Scott and Andy are only 18 months apart and between the two of them, they were able to manage to get into all sorts of nonsense.

Jeff and I had a laid back parenting style.  We didn't sweat the small things. If the boys were muddy from playing, no problem, I just turned the hose on them until they were clean enough to come into the house.  

In our house in California, Scott decided he wanted "garlic" (garland) in his room.  He found some 10 penny nails, which are huge, and hammered them into the walls to hold the garland.  Would we have preferred that he not do that?  Of course, but since the holes are already in the wall, some spackle and paint would cover up the holes when it was time to sell the house.

Once when Jeff was on a business trip, the boys wanted to know if mashed potatoes would stick to the walls.  This was important to know.  We loaded up our spoons and flung the potatoes at the wall.  Sure enough they do stick, for just a bit, and the dogs were happy to clean up after us!  It was one of those one-off kind of things.  Once you've got your answer, you don't have to revisit the experiment.

When I was growing up, my Mother would make a dessert and after it was done, and no company was expected, would put a spoon in the dish.  That spoon was her permission to help ourselves to the dessert.  While some would frown on using a "community/family" spoon, none of us ever were sick and obviously didn't die from eating from the same spoon.

As I raised my own children, I always made sure to leave a bit more cake batter than necessary in the bowl for eager little tongues.  When serving dessert, I always and still do, leave a bit of a ragged edge.  The message to the boys is clear: it is necessary to tidy up the edge.  Of course, sometimes they would get carried away with their cleanup and they always left an edge, which was their "duty" to clean up later.  

When Benjamin came along, I had nicer furniture than I did when Scott and Andy were young.  But somehow I didn't mind when he started banging on the coffee table.  Why?  Because in the big scheme of things, it's really only a table.  The table survived Benamin's toddler years and now has a few scars on top.  Now that Benjamin is 8, he still uses the table as the base for building towers.  Note to parents: buy foam blocks.  I have a very large plastic box that holds all of the foam blocks that are used for roads, towers and anything and everything.  As Benjamin got older, he always asked if he could play on the table.  The answer has always been absolutely.

Our house is definitely a home.  When Scott comes to the house, he heads straight for the pantry for food.  Our pantry is stocked, actually probably overstocked with food, and Scott is always able to find something to eat.  Do I mind?  Nope.  I'm blessed with the fact that he feels comfortable enough to help himself to whatever he can find.  

Our home has dog hair, dust bunnies and hand prints on light switches. For 30 years, it has been our home.  The boys have grown up here and they think of the house as home.  For sure after this many years, their are some dings in the walls.  A lot of those dings came from me hauling around the vacuum and not paying attention where I was going!

Our house is a home.  A soft place to land for the boys, as well as for Jeff and I.

P