My House is My Kids Home Too

Before my husband and I got married we talked about kids. How much we wanted, what our ‘roles’ would be and decided that we were going to do everything we could to ensure I could be a stay at home parent at least until they were all full time in school.

We had kids very early in our marriage – we got married in July 2004 and had our first full term child in December 2005. Right out of college we tied the knot and began our family planning right away. We were living in an apartment at the time and my husband was working full time and I stopped working when I was very early pregnant with Big P {I had 2 miscarriages before him and I was on bed rest early}.  We knew a house was in our future at some point – with a huge focus on our family.

We purchased our first home in 2008 – pregnant with Triton we moved in with Big P and Princess R.  We lost Triton here and brought Baby E home from the hospital here. It is where we will raise them until we are too big for this house.

We bought this house for them. Our house is their home too.  We “decorated” it with them in mind knowing that we would be raising 3 (or more) babies, toddlers, preschoolers, kids here. We knew our kids would be close in age – and they are – which means chaos and more kids then hands and eyes.

I consider myself a “gentle parent” – I don’t like to raise my voice, say “no” too often or spend all day re-directing the kids. This does not mean I don’t discipline, just means I like to take the ‘softest’ path possible.  For us this means creating a house that is safe, kid friendly and where I won’t have to spend my time worrying about crayon on the wall, a kid hitting their face off a coffee table or if one of my kids accidentally drops some almond milk on the floor.

Kids don’t need stress in their life – certainly not in their own home. I also do not need anymore stress in my life. I don’t want to have a heart attack when I have to go to the washroom during craft time and I come back and Baby E has coloured on the wall or if one of my kids has an accident on the floor or they are getting too close to the edge of the coffee table.

So instead of worrying about all of that – we took all “that” away. We have no coffee table, our living room doesn’t have expensive furniture or a huge television. 

We painted our walls with scrubbable eggshell paint so it takes only 2 wipes to get crayon, marker or pen off.   The rule here – if you leave something important lying around and a kid got to it – it’s your fault.  I only have 2 arms, 2 eyes with 3 kids… it is near impossible to watch them ALL the time. 

Instead of fancy expensive artwork hanging on the walls we hung up the most valuable paintings – exclusive to our house. The kids made our artwork that hangs above our couch and TV unit in the living room. The are so proud to show them off and I think they look good. 

If you have ever wondered how I get any blogging, writing, tweeting done? I have my main computer in the computer of my living room – just off the couch. I sit on the couch and write/tweet when Baby E is taking her naps (remember she only sleeps on me) during the day.  I can periodically check my emails and stuff during the day because it is right where were are most of the time. The kids also like to play games on the computer now & we are slowing integrating some “how to” computer stuff during the day.

We have all our breakable, expensive, important stuff up in our room – the rest of the house the kids have access to. They know the rules of the house – they know they are not supposed to draw on the walls, or make a mess but they are kids – they will test boundaries and make poor judgments, fall and hurt themselves.

Our decor will change as they get older – we will be able to incorporate more “adult” items but while they are still young, clumsy and learning we will have our house decorations suit them. :

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