Easy come easy go.

When the bamboo floors in our house were brand new, clean and shiny, only a week old, there was a day Jayla and her cousin decided it would be a splendid idea to do some furniture rearranging as they played. This piece should go here, not there. Obviously. Who knows what mom and dad were thinking to place it so inappropriately?!

On the phone with a friend, I watched in horror their final steps with the little table as it reached a (clearly better, from a toddler's point of view) destination. The long, slender, dented, white stripe that marked their trail across that pristine floor almost gave her mother a heart attack. I reacted. Overreacted is more like it.....to put it mildly. Alright, I totally freaked out.

A few years later, our floors are scratched, dented, marked, dinged all over the place.
There was a lesson I needed to learn, not necessarily easily, over time.
As I take a look at our well-used floors now, I laugh at myself remembering my former excessive concern over the things we own.
These days it's just a fact of life. Our stuff will likely break. The probability is pretty high. There are several kids here all day long nearly every day. They are busy. Playing hard, as children tend to do.
Things are necessary, but they matter very little in the big picture, the only one that really means anything.
In a house full of young ones, I joke that we have at least a break a day. It's a joke that is entirely true. When dad gets home, we show him what needs repaired. He is no longer surprised, and neither am I.
Don't get too attached to material possessions we tell the kids. We try to model this for them in how we respond day by day as things are lost, ruined, destroyed, misplaced, accidentally broken.
Stewardship is important, definitely. Our house is far from trashed. We spend many hours maintaining and caring for the things we own and the home in which we live. We are determined to not allow this to be where our priority lies though, where our affections reside.
People are sacred. Inanimate items are useful, helpful, enjoyable, but the vast majority of them have no lifelong or eternal meaning. Living beings, they do. Every single one of them.
It has been important key to my sanity to realize and accept this and help our children do the same.
Looking over our floors now, I see the beauty of lives lived on them. They are part of an imperfect home full of imperfect people. I wouldn't change those scratches for the world. They tell a story of our history, one of days of play and energetic activity gone by. Fond memories are tied to those marks. Like the day many moons ago, when our little girl scooted the furniture accross the floor as she played.
Easy come easy go.....
I will take care of my belongings, but reserve my love for my people.