My beautifully imperfect house

I admit to being one of those women who look at decorating magazines, model homes, and YES! I am addicted to Pinterest because I secretly dream of having a beautiful perfectly put together house. Nowhere in my Dream Home board will you find that stray dirty sock my Princess can't seem to pick up (and I refuse to do it for her). On a good day, my house won't be raided by the health department, but some days, you'd need hazmat team to get through it. Even when we have company, my house is always imperfect. I know women whose houses are always perfect, even with kids. But to be honest, I never quite feel comfortable in their homes. I mean, yes, I love looking at how beautiful everything is, and sure, I'd like that for myself.

Except...

Here is what I'd be missing out on:

 

Back when the Princess was back in preschool, she made one of those ghastly macaroni pictures that seems to be standard preschool curriculum. She brought it home and insisted on displaying it. On my sliding glass door. But how does a mom say no to that? I said yes. One time, I tried taking it down to wash the sliding glass door (ours is always gross- dogs, kids, and I don't have to clean it daily), and she was really hurt that I took down her picture. I promised to put it back on, and so I did.

A couple years later, in Kindergarten, the butterfly in the picture appeared. It is faux stained glass, aka tissue paper, and therefore, according to my sweet girl, must be on a window. Who can argue with that logic?

About a year ago, the macaroni project bit the dust. It kept falling off and getting damaged, so I convinced her to put it in her special picture file. Every time I tried to clean the door or thought about doing something with the butterfly, I just couldn't bear to part with it. The butterfly had become just as an important part of my decor as any fancy thing I could have found in a magazine.

Then yesterday after school, I saw her on the couch, clipboard on her lap, her hands busy with crayons. I asked what she was making, and she said it was a quilt. She worked for two hours, deep in an artistic trance. Later that evening, she called me to the sliding glass door, excited, but with trepidation in her eyes. "Look what I did." I could tell she was half afraid I wouldn't like it, worried that I might ask her to take it down, but I thought about her macaroni picture, and about the other pieces of art I'll occasionally find taped around my house.

My kids are artists. No, the art won't win any prizes or be featured in a gallery, but it's their art. And the grin she gave me when I said, "I love it," is priceless.

As long as I have kids (and hopefully someday, grandkids), I will never have a perfect house. I will do things to try to make it nicer, cleaner, and replicate some of the things I see in magazines and Pinterest. In the end, though, I accept the fact that my home has funny things like random pictures hung in places you don't usually think to hang pictures. But that's okay, because to me, it's beautiful