Construction and Coziness

We have been having our carpets replaced for the last two days now and while I am so, so thankful to be done with the old, stained rugs, having our entire family stuck in our kitchen/dining area has been a bit cramped, to say the least. As I write this, I have one dog on either side of me and Forrest is sitting a few feet away trying to work with a cat on his lap. The girls arrive home from school in a few minutes and I am not emotionally prepared for another afternoon where we all spend every. Single. Second. Together.

Scratch that. Forrest got up and now the cat is on my lap.

I love our crazy full house, the chaos and the noise and the intensity of it. I know what my kids are up to most of the time because I can literally hear them from pretty much every room. When I was a kid and read Mrs. Piggle-wiggle, I didn’t want to be one of the other children. I wanted to be her – the old woman with the upside-down house and backyard full of buried treasure. I like to think I achieved it in spirit if not in reality. The house is right side up, but I can guarantee that if a bunch of kids tore up my backyard, they’d probably find a lot of stuff, some of it reasonably valuable. I know that because for some birthday party or other, I threw ten bucks worth of quarters into a pile of hay. It was the best kid distraction I’d ever seen.

But, on days when the girls are tired from school and the animals are riled up from strangers in the house and Forrest is annoyed at having to work from the dining room, there’s a part of me that remembers that Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle lived alone. Alone! It’s been so long that I can’t even imagine it. I wish I could just dip my foot into the old days for a few hours – to a crappy apartment that was just how I liked it, and that most important of all, stayed clean when I cleaned it.

My family is so, so good about housework; I really can’t complain. But there is the subtle drift of stuff from one place to another, a slow slide toward entropy that exhausts me. One moment the counters are clear, the next, there’s the remainders of an art project, a dirty teacup, and for some reason, a rock that has to live inside my house. I keep finding the electric pencil sharpener, plugged in, lying on the couch. Why? Why?!?

There’s a good reason for all of the detritus, I’m sure. And I am mostly good natured about it, because I know that the clutter is the evidence of lives being lived. I want my kids to do art projects and have tea parties and love the outdoors so much they bring it in. I like that they feel comfortable enough to hang twinkle lights on the wall for no good reason, just to make the house more fun. I hope that when they grow up, they will realize that our possessions are there to serve us, not the other way around.

So, this afternoon, we’ll all get very cozy and wait out the construction zone. And in a day or two, God willing, we’ll be able to stretch our legs once again, in a house that’s just the right size for us.