no place like home

dorothy and her ruby slippers knew it. even as she and her trio of new found friends bounced along the yellow brick road, she was wise to the fact. well before she was introduced to glenda and her glitzy red shoes, she was certain. maybe a tornado or two and a few flying monkeys helped cement her belief, but deep down she always knew, there's no place like home. it has been the subject material of countless songs. if i could retrieve the exact number i am sure the figure would be staggering. everyone from bing crosby to the foo fighters has sung about it.  even though it can be so different for each of us, we all know exactly how it is intended to feel. we have volumes of norman rockwell paintings cataloged in our heads. we know what it is supposed to sound like, smell like, look like. often it doesn't. i had to get over that idea years ago. there are no perfect people living in perfect homes. well, except for those flattened characters in the pages of decorating magazines. as a young girl i would spend countless hours pouring over better homes and gardens cutting out pictures of perfection. even the name suggests something better. something more.  something perfect.  i had a shoebox underneath my bed, not full of teen idols and pop stars, but full of pictures of gardens and kitchens and bedrooms. when most girls plastered their walls and locker doors with tiger beat photos of sean cassidy, i was already familiar with chintz and faux finishes. okay, so now you know. yet another admission of strange wiring. sigh. anyway, that was the birth of my domestic ideal. i would most certainly say that my parents encouraged this interest. they both have a somewhat saavy sense for the aesthetic. dad worked in people's homes all the time. mom found her artistic bend in the world of antiques. i have never seen two people get so excited about lead glass doors or 12 inches of crown molding. we were the family that would drive around at Christmas time and rate our neighbor's lighting displays. terrible, i know. recently i have heard my own children use words like tacky and cheesy. oh. ouch. i am quite sure that is not the Christmas tradition i wish to pass down. however, i will take this moment to say that candles in the windows, fresh greenery and white lights do wonders for any house come the month of december. and...(if i might add), those blow up thingys in front yards- though scoring big points with the under ten crowd - do detract a bit from the picturesque quality of our front scapes. okay. enough of that. i sound snobbish and certainly don't intend to as i am trying to tell you about a most non-snobbish thing: home. though i still spend countless hours and exert a ridiculous amount of energy on our abode, i have to say, it is a little different lately. i believe it is one of the reasons God has given us four children with plans to add one more to our already bulging nest. children have this uncanny ability to keep us humble and dirty. they have this indescribable aptitude for scribbling upon the pristine. perfect example: last year's holiday home tour. we had agreed to show our house on a (very simple) neighborhood home tour raising money for a local charity. i had worked for weeks pulling the place together. i whipped up as much christmas decorating design magic as any mother of four could muster. the day of the event was no exception. i pulled out all the stops. chopping down greenery from my yard with wild abandon. simmering cloves and cinnamon on the stovetop. sweeping. polishing. pruning. trimming. rearranging. oh yeah, i was in full modus operandi. decorating diva unleashed. no one messed with me. hours before the event began, my husband, in a moment of brilliance (and fear), packed the children into the family SUV and escaped my frenzy. i was delighted. i had the place to myself. with 134 minutes to go...it would be dazzling! i was certain: there IS no place like home. girls, you know of what i write. don't deny it. there is nothing quite like having our homes to ourselves. we revel in the quietness and order of a still and perfectly empty house. complete bliss. alright, back to the story... so there i was standing in my kitchen, the lady of the manor, the queen of the castle, graciously greeting my guests. "oh yes, come in. i welcome you. perhaps a glass of sparkling punch? oh thank you. thank you. yes, that is the smell of wonderful things baking. yes, you are too kind," i blushed and billowed under their compliments. it was at that moment, when my house was brimming with admirers, that the family SUV returned. i could hear the rumble of them well before the front door even opened. i could sense the menacing presence of their carnival like aura before even laying eyes on the foursome. within minutes of them entering my palace -i mean house- IT occured. a kindly, older gentleman standing in my kitchen picked up a piece of a brownie he believed someone had dropped. he helpfully scooped it up in his most delicate hand and began to walk toward me. it was like something out of a horror film. our noses simultaneously winced and our eyes locked. we both new immediately what he held gently in his fingers was no brownie. we could smell it well before we could verbalize what it was. at that same moment other guests standing in my oh-so-festive kitchen began also to wrinkle their noses and look around suspiciously. i could see the massacre unfolding before me, shoes were checked and comments exchanged. someone - my 11 year old son, to be exact - had tracked in dog doo-doo. so much for the simmering cloves and cinnamon. they were instantly trumped. a search ensued and the culprit was uncovered. he had already traveled miles within the house. he was flash gordon with dog doo-doo on his shoes. his obvious goal to hit every flooring surface in our three level home. he left nothing unscathed with this horrific scent. the christmas decorations quickly lost their luster. the greenery seemed not quite so fresh. my haughty shoulders slumped as i followed the massive trail of filth around the house. i believe my home looked like one of those cut out pictures in the shoebox beneath my bed for exactly ten minutes. that was it. that was all the perfect i was going to get. a year later i can chuckle over this most unfortunate encounter with humility. in retrospect, i am always thankful when a dose of perspective crashes into my reality. i am not saying i like it. i still cannot look that neighbor in the eyes without some trace of embarrassment. but truth be told, i wouldn't give up the dog that left the mess or the boy that tracked it in. not for one minute. our home is not about holiday home tours....it is not about magazine picture perfection. it is about four messy kids, an occasionally messy dad, and a mom who wouldn't trade them in for all the quiet, clean and simmering cloves in the world. as we grow closer to adding our baby bella, i know things will only get messier. but messy can take on its own form of beauty. i am pretty sure no one wants to photograph it for their magazine pages, but that's okay.  life is about so much more than living in a shoebox underneath a little girl's bed. our home, i assure you, has more to do with dirty tennis shoes than it does with ruby slippers. regardless of what covers our feet, there is, indeed, no place like home.