Sunday, August 17, 2008

At War . . . At Home

I feel that we are at war with our home.

We've lived in this house for a little over four years now and for the longest time, we lived in relative harmony with it. We sometimes lived at cross purposes, but for the most part there was a detente of sorts. We agreed to coexist without questioning the right of the other to exist as they saw fit. Sure, there have been skirmishes over the years--like when we redid the master bathroom or when we removed the ugly African themed wallpaper and textured grey paint from the guest room (Now Hannah's room.)

But, the Cold War began to warm about seven months ago. The trigger, for whatever reason, was Hannah's birth. Perhaps we felt that we couldn't properly raise her in this world of uneasy truces. But we fired the first shot soon after Hannah's arrival from the hospital when we redecorated the den. We had made our first aggressive move into enemy territory--without provocation on the house's part. We simply decided that we wanted to depose that room's regime of unsightly appearance. And from there the dominos just kept falling.

The house has tried to fight back with the bathroom floor/dining room ceiling battle. But that is pretty well patched up now and we feel that we are firmly in control and that we are in charge. Unfortunately, the house, while cowed, has an ally in the yard. We have been fighting to hold that front for many years, fending off flanking maneuvers from the weeds and the mulched beds and the drying grass. But, now . . . emboldened by our growing success at winning the hearts and minds of the house, we are now trying to bring our way of life to the backyard and sideyard.

It'll be a hard, tough road. Tempers will flare. Sweat will fly. Backs will ache. But eventually we will prevail.

****

The kids wanted to do that old standby of a lemonade stand this afternoon. Lynda and I were, naturally, skeptical. We made the kids watch out the front window for five minutes and asked them how many people came down the street. Once we told them the had to eliminate our neighbors across the street who were working in their yard, they realized that only one person had come by. But, they were undaunted. We told them that we were not looking forward to mixing up the lemonade and setting up tables and chairs and then they deciding to give up after ten minutes.

But I took my iPod outside to provide some musical diversion. And I took Hannah out as well. She enjoys playing in her exersaucer outside, so that would keep the kids occupied as well. And then our neighbor's kid also came out to keep them interested. Eventually, they did give some away--mostly to the neighbor family and what they drank themselves. And while they were supposed to be giving it away for free, everyone insisted on giving them money anyway. So, they managed to make about $1.75.

All in all, it was a good way to spend some time outside.

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