Can Someone Just Come and Tell Me I'm Not Alone?

A few months after I married my second husband, we began planning our dream home in Mexico. We were expecting my seventh child, our first together, and we wanted a home that would reflect the needs of a large family. Our focus was on the children, while maintaining the hacienda style we thought would be perfect for living in Mexico. We planned for each child to share a small bedroom with a sibling, thus leaving more space for three great rooms in the main area of the home, plus a large basement we hoped to complete with a game room, theater and music studio.

We painted all the walls with semi-gloss paint, which is easy to clean, we tiled every square inch of the floors, choosing to use only area rugs, and not carpet. Kids have been known to stain carpets, at least our kids, as I learned from living in John's cream-carpeted home, where we lived during the first two years of our marriage. We did carpet the stairwells, to cushion any accidental falls, but used a multi-colored brown. All these things we did to keep our home looking presentable, even with a large family.

The process of building our home went on for over two years (and still continues). During this time, we welcomed John's first-born son into the world, then, 12 months later, we discovered we were expecting our eight child. No biggie, right? What's one more? We had designed our home for lots of children, so having eight kids would be no problem.

Until one egg split into two (as far as I believe, although John thinks they're fraternal), and our lives were turned upside-down. We had twins. Now I had my big, beautiful dream home, but NO TIME to keep it clean. For the first year, there were piles of dishes in what were supposed to be my three pristine restaurant-style sinks...,



...piles of dirty laundry on the floor of my Mexican-style pink and green laundry room, and piles of papers, bills and books on the granite office area in our kitchen. It was not the home I had dreamed it would be. Yes, the walls were the colors I'd dreamed of, the floors the perfect Mexican style I had designed, and my kitchen was a dream come true, but I often found I was embarrassed to have people over!

Now that the twins are 22 months, things have improved drastically. Yes, there are usually toys strewn over all three great rooms in the main section of the house, but I am able to keep up, generally, with the dishes, laundry and paper piles. However, to keep the twins from completely destroying our surroundings, we have had to take measures which protect, yet uglify, our home. This does not make me very happy, but I know it's only temporary, so, like all things difficult, this, too, shall pass. Here are some examples...

Upon first glance, this looks like a lovely decorated Christmas tree, complete with eclectic and hand-made family ornaments...



But here is the bottom, because I can't seem to manage to keep the twins away from said Christmas tree...



This is just completely ridiculous...



Next we have what should be an inviting dining room table...



NOT! Note the rope. (Honestly, John gets so annoyed that he can't sit at his own dining room table without untying a double knot. No, we never had to do this with any of our singletons, but having twins walk, or run, together on a dining room table is just not a safe thing to allow.)

Then there are the hall closet doors. Isn't this just a lovely way of keeping the twins out...



Let's move on to the 3 three and under's bedroom. What was once a lovely quilt designed and sewed by my sister and her husband...



...is now duct taped to the wall as a way to keep out light during nap time...



This door...



....it may seem like a normal door, albeit it scratched from two years of use by children, but this door is not what it seems. You are viewing this door from the hallway. Yes, the lock is on the outside. We don't believe in having locks on the insides of bedrooms, but when the twins got old enough to open these doors and go through their older siblings' bedrooms like hurricane Katrina, we had to place locks on the outsides of all the bedroom doors. Yes, sometimes the 3-year-old finds it fun to lock his brothers and sister inside their own rooms, but this is something they have grown accustomed to. At least they can escape through their jack and jill bathrooms to adjoining bedrooms.

Let's move on to the dream kitchen.

I took the following photo from a previous post...



When I dreamed about my dream kitchen, I always dreamed it with colorful Mexican-designed towels hanging from the oven handles. For now, this is not to be, as we must keep the towels on the stoves or the counters, like so, or else they will end up heaped on the floor....



What was supposed to be a clean, uncluttered island...



...has become this...



...as we are not able to keep things in the bottom drawers because we have not found cabinet locks the twins cannot destroy.

And the hickory cabinets....oh, the hickory cabinets. What was supposed to be this...



...is now this...



...and what was supposed to be this...



...is now this...



So, as per my question in the title of this post, am I alone in this or does anyone else struggle with the fact that their home has turned into Fort Knox? Of course I don't resent the twins for the fact that I've had to alter my expectations of living in my dream home, because just look at them....






...but it sure will be nice when, next Christmas, we can have the bottom of our tree decorated...



Wait, what am I talking about? We will have a crawling 9-month-old next Christmas. Never mind.

Oh, the joys of family!

(But really, you know I love 'em, right? I do!)