domestic law

When you rent, you often put into place a set of "house rules" for guests to help minimize your damage liability to your landlord when you move out and the keep on the good side of your neighbors. Really, these are just "apartment rules" because they are in place primarily for the sake of others. You may be the one making the rules for your apartment guests, but really you are just dressing down (or up as the case may be) a subset of your rental agreement and letting your guests know that it extends to them as well.

When you own a house, you really do get to set the rules. This is why the common term is "house rules" for the body of law governing a small informal locality (usually smaller than 1 city block unless the house is actually a casino) under a single governing body(homeowner/s). So, now that we own a house and we are about to start entertaining guests (ie: baby shower), we have opportunity and jurisdiction to enact our own set of house rules. It is good to be the king.

I thought I would post the house rules i have created in lieu of the forthcoming baby shower:

Kids and adults of all ages are welcome!
House rules are as follow:
No jumping on the mommy
No running around the mommy
No jumping on the dog
No running around the dog
No jumping on the furniture
No running in the house
No throwing things (unless previously approved by Will or Andrea)
No eating away from the table (or other approved areas)
No chewing on the furniture
No chewing on the dog
No dirty shoes in the house
No playing in the attic
Do not let the dog out of the house.
Do not take the dog out of the house without permission.
No going to the park without adult supervision (or if you ARE an adult, please make sure someone knows you are going)
No hanging or swinging from anything (especially from the mommy)
No playing in the basement unless supervised
No playing outside unless supervised
No anything unless supervised = Children must always be supervised.
No screaming or shouting unless that is the extent of your language skills AND you are less than 2 years old
No writing on the walls
No writing on the floor
No writing on furniture
All of the above also goes for drawing
No playing in traffic
No playing in the alley
No jumping off of the front steps
No jumping onto the front steps
No jumping or swinging from or to the porch railings
No slamming doors
No kicking
No hitting
Whatever it is you are doing the answer is no
No causing a neighborhood disturbance, we will call the cops on you
No Calvinball in the house
No steel reinforced footwear
No steel reinforced clothing
No nothing that might damage the wood floors, woodwork, or walls.
No laughing at our paper shades
No pulling on our paper shades
No drawing or writing on our paper shades
No playing with the lawn mower
Under no circumstances are yo uto play with any electrical outlets, equipment, or computers without prior approval and subsequent supervision.

Time outs will be executed in the dryer (set to fluff), so be sure you do not need to take one.