hi, my name is Patty and I am raising six beautiful kids, from college (first one is going to graduate, so does that mean she can start raising me now?) down to the third grade.....That said?

"TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES! TAKE OFFF YOUR SHOES!! TAKE OFFFF YOUR SHOOOES!!!!", is if not the most melodic sound, at least an honest one, heard screamed parentally from the innermost sanctitiy that I lovingly call, my home. (my husband has given up reminding me that I sound like I belong in Brooklyn, not middle-class suburbia, when I scream out of the front door, and call down the 'quiet' block of our charming neighborhood to my children. He would say to me, why don't you just hang out of the front window? I figure, God gave us moms lungs, so ? I use them, and not-so-sparingly!)

When you enter our humble abode, you come through a screened-in porch. Once upon a time, a long long time ago, upon initial ownership of this place, it was my fantasy, that this porch would become, during Fall, Spring, and Summer,a gathering place where my lovely family would lounge at our patio table and nestle among our cushiony chairs, to have leisure time and just relax and enjoy our beautiful yard, becoming 'one' with nature. I envisioned my kids lost in games of gold fish and scrabble eating popcorn and drinking cremesickles (homemade by mom, of course) on hot and lazy summer days, to round out a perfect day spent sunbathing and swimming at the lake. Yeah, right!

I had these dreams of granduer, so let me linger, for just awhile.

Reality check. Even with my wonderful and much lauded (by, oh, me) shoe bucket tucked neatly away in the corner, beside the 'sports bucket', (sporting, well, none-other than assorted balls, jump-ropes, saucery flyling things), my porch looks like a depot for discarded and muddy shoes. Aargh!

Okay. A typical week begins. Mom has accosted each and every kid to take their grimy little shoes, and pleeeeze put them in your closet. The rule? One pair of shoes per kid on the porch. By week's end? I dunno, conservatively, a dozen or more, including, with the warmer weather skates, flip-flops (mom, they don't count as shoes! We can't wear them to school, but need them for after school. C'mon. Give us two pair each on the porch!). Aargh, and Aargh! again!!

Okay, so, I try another tactic called, 'lining up the shoes neatly'. Of course, on both sides of the porch door and or front door. Okay. I stand back, not quite the haven I would like, but? Acceptable. By the end of , oh , the week-end? Rampage of shoes, again.

At this point I make a decision. I really, really don't want the dirt and germs of their street shoes throughout my home. I am really not up to daily mopping, forgive me. So? I weigh out the choices, A: Sloppy porch or B: Dirty floors. Then I have to consider if I go for A, then I must weigh in the first-impression of newcomers to our home (with all my kids, someone extra is always coming or going). First impression? I must rate on the def. not a stepford mom list, not the enter through the garage mom (hard for us, as in our 100 hundred year old charmer, the garage is most def. detached); hopefully I opt for lived in and casual. So, I choose A. Sloppy porch, clean floors!

That decided, there are defininte advantages to having your entryway littered with enough shoes to make an impression at a rummage sale. First, and most obvious, friends of the kids know, and are told by my kids if the obvious doesn't register, please kick off your shoes before you come inside, k? My mom's, well a shoe nazi. Secondly? By taking a quick look at the front porch, I can tell which kid is still roaming the streets, and who is sequestered away inside, somewhere in the maze of our older home, thus making little need for those cellular phone devises every kid over five now seems to sport, And C, if there is an extra pair? I know that we have a friend here still, or, as often happens, a friend has arrived, and me, mom, had no clue until seeing the additional pair of shoes on the porch, so detecting other inhabitants that have slipped in un-noticed now register on the mom scale of who's who and where.

Now, there are exceptions to my no shoe rule. It does not apply to grown-ups who are there to exchange a pleasantry and pick up their child from a play date. That would be kinda rude, no? So, I just keep that can of lysol handy for a quick spray down. Other exceptions? No, not really. Sorry.

Maybe I belong in a European country where friends have told me that this practice is common place and 'house shoes' ( i guess our American version is slippers) are worn strictly in the home, and 'street shoes'? Remain outside. I think that common sense would tell you (for me, after the eye-opening 60 minute special on germs that come in your house via the shoes) yo, look at all the mud those kids are dragging in here! Thus, the common refrain in my home when one stray kid is caught red-handed, or should I say, shoe-laden;

GET OUT! ARE YOU CRAZY? TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES! DO YOU WANT TO MOP?

This quickly renders them to their knees, continuing their forray to the kitchen for drink and food, on four 'legs'.

Maybe one day I can afford that housekeeper who constantly cleans up and I can have my dream porch. Unitl then? I'll be satisified with a modicum of organized shoe clutter, semi-clean floors, and kids who run happily in and out of the house, playing, laughing, and , of course, kicking off their shoes!

God Bless You,

Patty