the weathered pane: Our Home is No Longer Our Home

Remember when we were raising young kids? Our house was usually chaotic. Toys everywhere. Art work hanging on the fridge. Color crayon "art" on the walls. Kids were running rampant. Not to mention clothes strewn everywhere, especially if there were girls involved.

Then, the kids grow up. Move out. Get a place of their own. Get married. Have their own kids.

Meanwhile, we retire and settle in for our next adventure whatever that might be. Some times that involves traveling, crafting, gardening, and other hobbies.

This is our life now. The chaos. The new trend is to babysit grandkids. That's what we do. It started out with getting our first grandchild through the new born stage, where day care was most expensive. Then came our second grandchild.... and our third... and five years later, we're still at it.

And that's okay. I've come to accept that this is where we're supposed to be, and this is what we're supposed to be doing. Right now at this particular time. I don't know what else God has in store for us, but I have confidence that are services here will be completed in the near future so we can go on with OUR life.

Besides being exhausting work and not having much of a life for ten hours a day, our home is no longer our own. We have toys everywhere. Chaos everywhere. With two grandaughters (age 3 and 4), we have several wardrobe changes a day. Art work? Yep, can't see the fridge or the walls most of the time because of all the pictures that have been colored or painted and presented to us.

The grandkids don't seem to like how we decorate and they take every opportunity to switch things around for us.

We have craft projects hanging from every knob or nail the kids can reach.

There's forts. Babies lined up in a row. Stairs become staging areas for babies.

Yep.... we lost our nice, quiet, home five years ago when we started watching grandbabies.... Instead of spending our days enjoying the quiet of doing nothing or possibly playing cards or gardening or having lunch with friends, we now change diapers, fix meals, clean up messes, do craft projects, change more diapers, make more meals, make more forts, do more projects, and clean up more messes.

But the joy we get seeing our grandkids every day almost makes up for all it. The rest comes from the hugs and smiles we receive.

I'm not saying that I don't long for those days when our life will become much simpler.... when I don't have to wash tongue prints, lips, and fingerprints off the windows every week.... or move dolls that have taken over the couch so I can sit down.... or when I can go out to lunch instead of fixing lunch.