Home Value

I was vacuuming the hallway when I noticed Jenna had duct taped a poster to her door and I wondered if duct tape will come off in three years when she moves out of the house and on to college.  Then I started wondering about all the nicks and dents and stains and wondered how much our home value has gone down as a direct result of my kids activities and my inability to keep them from destroying things.  And then I started comparing 'house' value vs 'home' value and realized I was focusing on the wrong thing.

In the basement there are hundreds of small holes in our silver insulation.  Years ago I came down the stairs to find Andy had stuck all of his action figures into the insulation head first.  In the kitchen there is a water stain on the ceiling.  Jenna loved baths so when she asked to use our Jacuzzi tub I didn't think anything of it, until I heard rain in the kitchen.  I splashed in and stood in shock as a waterfall cascaded from the ceiling light fixture.  There are dents in the garage door from Johnny's lacrosse ball and portions of his bedroom ceiling are scraped from my poor attempts to throw the perfect diving pass he insisted on catching before I could tuck him in.  We are missing a pain of glass from one of our double pain basement windows where I failed to use my anger management therapy, but if you find anything broken in the garage it was from years ago, because I haven't broken anything now that I've fininshed behavior therapy treatment. 

The kid's bathtub is ruined by Jenna's red hair dye, but it seems to have given her the individuality she was craving and now she is focused on getting straight A's through high school so she can go to a good college.  My house is not as clean as I would like it to be, but when given the choice to play xbox with my son or dust, the xbox wins every time. And I am good enough now that he has to use more than just his knife to beat me in Call of Duty.  However, the paintball course is a different story.  Apparently I'm better with a gun than a controller.

I'm sure there is more damage I haven't mentioned or can't remember, but since I'm no longer thinking about the 'house value', I would guess my 'home' value has at the very least tripled.  It may even be the most priceless home in the whole neighborhood!