The Woman Who Lived in a Shoe

“There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.

She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.”

And so the children’s nursery rhyme goes.  I’m not quite that bad.  I don’t live in a shoe, on the contrary.  And I certainly do know what to do with my children.  I don’t think I have too many, but I know I don’t have enough time.

When I take a moment to look at our home, I mean really look at it, I can see how beautiful it could be.  How beautiful it will be.

In ten to fifteen years’ time, that is. 

Just a short while ago, Smallest Boy was clambering up onto a chair to sit beside me at the table, and the seat fell off, so he fell through the frame of the chair.  Except he was quick enough to jam his foot against the side so he was left safely dangling.  The previous evening, I removed another of these chairs because the leg buckled as I sat down and the chair heaved to one side.  That makes two with seats that fall off or if I am to be completely honest, taken off by the lads.  The others are chewed to within an inch of their wooden lives.  (Maybe that’s why one of them buckled underneath me)

When you drive up to our house the first thing that your eye rests on is the toilet roll sitting in the bathroom window.  It is like a beacon and it draws you to the fact that we do not have proper toilet roll holders in our house.  Currently, thanks to having a resident 22 month old and a 7 month puppy, toilet roll has to be placed up high.  Way up high. 

I walked round with a bucket of paint a short while ago, doing a patch up job on areas like the walls at the dining room table, around the sink in the bathroom, the window in the kitchen and around the fire place in the dining room.

Needn’t have bothered.  It is all modern art-ed again.  With Nutella and the colouring materials they received for Christmas.

Our lovely doors, in particular the architraves, look like wood worm has taken up residence.   

On closer inspection you can see that it is not a woodworm infestation, but an attack of the three and a half year old wielding a hammer and some masonry nails.  

What else?  Oh, yes.  Juno, our lovely, shiny black dog is slowly but methodically tearing up the floor. 

Everything is wrecked either by the kids or the dog.  If it is not chewed up, it is written on. 

We do possess one or three nice paintings that we happened upon BC (Before Childers) and as their very nature decrees that they be hung, they are safe enough.  You could get great mileage out of the cobwebs hanging from them though.  I know, I know.  I can’t blame the kids for that one. 

I would dearly like some new curtains.  Proper ones.  With lining.  But there is no way we can hang decent (expensive) curtains at present because we cannot afford expensive curtains due to the need to eat and that other pesky matter of keeping the roof over our heads.

Also the lads would use said expensive curtains as jungle vines.  I kid you not.  They see our furniture as gym apparatus.  The five year old has perfected a somersault off the fridge freezer and onto the couch. 

So you can see how frustrating it would be to invest in some home improvements.  

Yes, we have a home with strong potential to be beautiful.   One that will come into its own when the inhabitants move elsewhere.  In the meantime I am glad of the excuse not to kill myself cleaning.  What’s the point?  The lads will only view my work as a blank canvas for their, not so clean, work.

I am also aware, however, that when that time comes for our casa to emerge from its chrysalis, Mister Husband and I will be making ours.  We most likely will be approaching our wrinkly dotage and if I can’t seem to muster up the energy and/or interest now to give it the care and attention it deserves, that’s not looking like it’s going to happen in the next 15 years either.

After all, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks!