The wonder years

       Tomorrow morning, my little yellow house will be for sale.  They'll put a sign in the front yard and anybody could walk through my door and decide they want to buy it.  This will be the fifteenth time I've moved over the course of my life, but it feels very different this time.  There's been a lot of life lived in this house since the first day we walked through its front door.
        There's a LOT of preparation that must go into the selling of a house and I'm exhausted!  I'd like to say I'm meticulously neat and overly clean when it comes to my home, but I'd be lying if I did.  And so as I began to scrub the doors of the kids' bedrooms, there were marks more than a few days old.  I began to peel off princess stickers and superhero, "bravest patient" award badges, crayon masterpieces hanging by visible and assymetrically aligned masking tape, handprints and finger marks and my mind began to wander . . .I began to wipe away these smudges and my mind flooded with unerasable memories of the first time my daughter walked into her bedroom and the day she raced in front of me to push open the door to introduce her new brother to his palace where they reigned.   I remember chubby little legs attempting to stand on tiptoes and trying to wriggle the door knob to  open for the first time with the greatest of determination.  I remember putting child locks in place on these doors to protect the newest toddling member of our brood. Pinched fingers as a door slammed during a game of chase without knowing little hands were there.  Behind these doors were hide and seek caverns and explosions of laughter and giggles.  Sibling rivalries and threats that boys were absolutely not allowed to enter.  Summer days where the porch door was revolving with my kids and "adopted" neighbor's kids running in and out barefoot, leaving cut grass and sprinkler footprints in their wake.  Those same doors busting open at the first snowfall with them unable to get snow boots on fast enough to catch the flakes on their tongues to soon return inside the door to steaming cups of hot chocolate. Just a few short days ago Caleb leaned all his might against his door as my three year old Lexi pleaded from the other side "Caleb I admit I'm not a patient person, but give me a chance to try again" as they worked out their conflict that ended in hugging heaps on the floor. There were closed doors as I waited on the other side of a timeout where so many of their first lessons were learned of respect, obedience and then an assurance and trust of a deep and securing love that followed.   The conflicts had and resolved, the growing and maturing, the learning and the loving, the fighting and the struggling, the joys and the tears that have all occurred beside, in and outside of, opened and closed of these doors and doorframes.   My eyes began to well as I soaked in these precious memories that only these walls and doors will know once we are gone. I brought my hand down with one last swipe to get an overlooked chocolate thumbprint that I must not have cleaned on them very well or that they snuck up while I wasn't looking.  I know there will always be new doors to open, but I must admit I'm really going to miss these ones . . .