My Kids are my Nice

I was in the bathroom this morning staring at our brown ottoman.  It's riddled with small holes and has several spots that have been rubbed off.  My children like to turn it every which way and climb on top, often  shouting  singing and calling it their "stage".  "Do DOOOO!  Do DOOOO!" (Hear "Let it go!  Let it go! from my two-year-old who has some slight speech delays.)

The ottoman now sits in our bathroom against a blank wall as our bath time stool.  It was one of the few spots in the house where it didn't give the children access to something breakable or dangerous.  And it saves my back and my knees at bath time.  Definitely a good thing.  :-)  As I looked at it, I thought about all the items in our house that show obvious signs of wear from our beloved children:

• The beautiful wooden table and chairs (handed down from my grandmother) with permanently crusted food in the cracks and glitter sparkling innocently in the crevices.  
• The broken blender from the same sweet two-year-old.  And the broken sheet of glass that goes on top of my dresser. 
• The dried banana slime and spoiled milk spills from dripping sippy cups in places I don't even know about...

You get the idea.

I should replace that ottoman, I thought.  But it would just get beat up again.  

At that moment a comment came to my mind, one that a woman I know well used to say around her children,

"You can't have anything nice with kids."

Immediately I chastised myself for even worrying about the ottoman.  My heart broke for her kids.  I dream of a home that's always clean and people walk in and think, "what a nice environment!  this is gorgeous!  it smells so nice!", but that's not the most important thing.  

I love it when my kids use that ottoman as a stage.  I will take my crusted chairs every day when it means that I get to watch them try new foods and see their eating skills improve.  And leftover glitter is a reminder of the fun we had making salt dough Christmas ornaments together.  Every sign of wear and tear is evidence that I'm blessed to raise children.  I get to hear their squeals of laughter at tickle time and read them bedtime stories and watch them grow and mature daily.

You can't have anything nice with kids?  Okay -- maybe you can't have nice furniture with kids.  But who cares?  My kids are my nice.

My kids are my nice.


"Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.  Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior's hands.  How happy is the man whose quiver is full of them!  He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates."  Psalm 127: 3-5, NLT