What home is …

We tend to get a ton of magazines at my house. I get Mother Earth News, Grit and All About Beer quite frequently. However I read through them all very fast and quickly run out of things to read. So occasionally I’ll pick up one of L Bird’s  magazines and flip through it. Yesterday I was out of my magazines so I picked up L Bird’s Real Simple and then Better Homes & Garden. As I sat there flipping through the pages, I saw a ton of beautiful homes and immaculate rooms. They all had bunches of trendy tricks to spruce up rooms and decorate with little trinkets. But as I saw pages and pages of these pictures they started to look really sterile to me. Everything was just too perfect and you could immediately tell that anyone who lived in these houses didn’t have pets or children. They just reminded me of fancy doctor’s offices and had that very detached clinical feel to them. They just didn’t feel like home to me.

Nope, that definitely isn’t home. Home is coming home to laughter and toys scattered everywhere. It is being greeted by two wet noses and wagging tails. Home is the kitchen table being cluttered with paints and markers because you want your daughter to be able to express herself (plus I normally get a cool drawing autographed by the artist). Home is the lawn being a little longer than the rest of the neighborhood because you would rather spend time playing “pirate ship” and “jail” than be sitting on the mower and wasting precious moments of their lives. Home is taking the clean linens and dining room chairs and making forts to hide in and have lunch under. Home is trying not to stumble on the cat as you’re making your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night or it is trying to navigate your way from the kitchen to the dining room with a hot cup of coffee over two dogs and a 4 year old riding her tricycle in circles.

That is what home is to me. Yes, I do routinely get frustrated with the organized chaos my house can become from pets and a crafty 4 year old, and yes I get caught up in the whole “keepin’ up with The Jones’” syndrome where I get envious of other people’s homes and how perfect they seem. But I wouldn’t trade it. Yes, sometimes it’s crazy in  my house but it will be the memories we make today that will remind A Bird of “Home” when she’s older and has a family of her own.

That’s what home is…