The destruction of my home

My house is going downhill. I had no idea how much destruction small children could have on a home.

First there's the superficial. You know, marker on the wall, stickers on the doors and the unidentified brown stuff on the hallway wall going down the entire length. I really need to clean the up. There's also the new marks on the wall in the front room. My twins have discovered they can take the recliner, pop up the footrest and use the whole recliner like a teeter toter. The problem? The crashing against the wall is making gouge marks that will need to be patched before we can paint it.

My ten year old wants to decorate everything because you know if there's mud on the kitchen floor and dirty dishes piled up to my armpits, duct taped pictures on the appliances will really spruce up the kitchen.

I know folks have asked me why I don't watch the kids closer. Why I don't clean up after them. I'm not joking, I have been asked this by well meaning know it all adults that haven't yet been blessed with children. Worse, adults that have grown children and have forgotten what it's like. I'm simply out numbered. Right now I have two 2 year olds and one 3 year old. Throw in the seven and ten year old and you have a better handle on my day. I can supervise all I want but unless I split myself into thirds (going on the assumption the older two don't need quite as much supervision) there's always going to be at least two out of my sight.

And causing mischief.

It was really hard that first year. When Ean was two and I was nursing those twins almost non-stop, he simply had a heyday, Everyday. I've joked before that Ean's mission in life is to keep us humble by shedding us of the material possessions. Unfortunately he's not only destroyed things that can eventually be replaces like DVD's and VHS tapes but he's destroyed irreplaceable keepsakes that are now gone forever. He recently ripped up some newspaper articles about my grandpa. I don't know if I'll be able to find copies again. Pictures and negatives have been destroyed. Oh and he almost took all the buttons off a remote once. The only reason he didn't succeed is because I caught him before he was done.

And I really shouldn't pin it all on Ean. Greg went through a faze where he made any VHS tape he ran across into a purse. Just pull that black stuff out about six inches and it's a handbag. Add another eight inches and it's a shoulder bag.

The girls do more unintentional destroying. They don't sit down and think Hey, wouldn't it be cool to rip this Star Wars book into 10,000 pieces? Instead they think they'll play "school", take the Star Wars book down and then not put it back up so one of the red headed bandits can rip it into a 10,000 pieces. This of course is followed by a round of "but it wasn't me?!"

When Jane was a toddler there was literally a hurricane of paper that followed her from room to room. It was awful! I wouldn't allow scrap paper in the house because I just couldn't' cope with it. Well now it's not scrap paper but that girl leaves a trail of belongings where ever she goes. She had the nerve to ask me the other day why our house was such a mess. If looks could kill...

Did you know that if you flush a clogged toilet four times in a row enough water will surge out to completely flood not the upstairs bathroom and hallway but the downstairs as well? We're talking a three inch surge of water over the carpet. It took over a week to dry it all out and this with professional grade fan running twenty-four-seven.

The downstairs bathroom is directly under the upstairs bathroom. There have been so many floods, Kent's started pulling out dry-wall because he's found mold. I think it's all dried out but that's scary. Some stuff can't be repaired and honestly I never thought mold in our house would be a problem. We live in the bless-ed desert!

Our flooding basement reminds me all to much of my childhood and my older brother's constant flooding of our bathroom which sat directly over the kitchen. It was a regular thing to see water start to pour out of the kitchen light. Well, our flooding hasn't been that bad, yet.

Speaking of flooding we have a leak under dishwasher right now. Everything has to be washed by hand because the leak happens when the pump is running. The kicker? The dishwasher is set an inch below the the kitchen floor, with the swollen floorboards, it can't be removed to fix the leak. I'm afraid when push comes to shove we'll have to replace wood when we do finally take it out.

Is there someway I can blame that on the kids?