If you’ve been to our house, then there’s a good chance you’ve seen something we wouldn’t have planned for you to see. Our laundry pile, for instance, sometimes shifts its weight from the laundry room to the couch. This happens when someone has the disingenuous idea that we can catch up on laundry folding if we do it in front of the television. And, because we are slow learners and NOT multi-taskers, we frequently end up with a mountain of laundry on the couch that never gets folded.

One evening a few years ago, Dirk and I were watching a documentary on Mark Twain. The film showed a tour of Twain’s family home. It was stylish, simple and charming. It was also very tidy. It got me wondering, what if one of our children becomes famous someday – let’s say, maybe Mildred – and some fool decides to make a monument out of our house?

Tour Guide: “To your right, you’ll see the couch were the family frequently kept a laundry pile, as you can see. On your left is the wall where Mrs. Roundy intended on hanging pictures but never got around to it. Please remain behind the roped off area – yes, those are actual juice stains you see on the carpet, made by the Roundy children. As we move along into the kitchen, the pile of Corelleware waiting to be washed in the sink are the dishes used by the family, some still waiting to be washed. On your left, note the refrigerator art – yes, there is a refrigerator under all that. Notice the snappy sayings on the magnets. My favorite is ‘Save the earth, it’s the only planet with chocolate.’ (Sound of appreciative chuckles.) Here off the dining room is the art closet, birthplace of many of Mildred’s early creative pieces. We have replaced the closet door with a glass panel, so you can see it in its original state without items falling out every time the door is opened. Please follow me up to the second floor, where you’ll find the beds all unmade, as they would have been when the family was living here …”

As absurd as that would be, I’d prefer honesty to giving the wrong impression. Or, an undeserved right impression. It’s not all bad all the time, but we definitely have our moments. The problem in keeping it clean is that we are still living here. Our old house, though frequently company-ready, was only truly clean once: the day we moved out.

A friend who lives out of state once answered her door to find the neighbor boy on her porch. “My mom said our house is clean, so she told me to come play over here.” OK, I guess I prefer the messy house my children are allowed to play in over the picture-perfect one.

How do you find a balance between kid-friendly and house-beautiful?

Another friend who really does balance an attractive, tidy home with family friendliness gave me an interesting insight. While we talked in her kitchen, her teenaged son was standing nearby, and mother reminded son not to put his hands on the walls. I thought, That’s it! That’s what I’m doing wrong. I’m letting my children touch the house. My desire for the kids to feel creative and free to dream and invent is frequently in conflict with my desire for a neat, orderly home. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to draw the line.

Making a fort in the living room is usually fine; mixing the pieces for five different versions of Monopoly (Birdopoly, National Parks Monopoly, Mountaineering Monopoly, etc. compliments of my mother-in-law) to create a super new Monopoly game, is not fine.

Making a mess on the dining room table while creating an art project is fine; gluing said art project to the wall is not fine.

Ripping open a flower seed packet for a science experiment is fine; opening it on the living room carpet is not fine. (The carpet’s pretty dirty and gets good sunlight, so I guess we’ll see what comes up in 10 to 21 days.)

Right now, this is my life, and typically life is not a picture from a magazine. I don’t want to apologize anymore, so visitors beware. Just please don’t sit on the laundry pile; it doesn’t like it.

Denise Roundy truly admires her sister and other friends who keep their houses both kid-friendly and tidy, and doesn’t think them in the least uptight.