Organization and Detachment

I think it's been about a year or two now that I have been wadering around the house complaining to Bryan that we have too much stuff.  This little fact becomes irritatingly evident when I walk into the basement and find a play room strewn with toys that are so plentiful that my children can't put any of them away.  Sometimes I try to walk away and ignore the mess and other times I hit the roof and go on a clean and purge rampage.

Bryan was in Vegas last week for a business trip and while he was gone I did my best to try and get the house clean.  The main level of the house looked pretty good when he got home around 1AM on Saturday.  Early Saturday morning I woke up pretty early and decided that I'd go and take care of the laundry and a few other things before anyone else was awake.  I was feeling pretty good about the main level of the house being nice and clean so I wasn't at all prepared for what was waiting for me down in the basement.  The playroom which my children assured me was clean and straightened for their dad's return home was not clean.  No, it looked like a bomb had hit that room.  At first I was just going to try putting some of the toys away, but the more I tried to straighten things, the angrier I was becoming.  This room, this total monstrosity littered with hundreds of choking hazards is where my two year old had spent hours playing with her sisters the night before.  The older girls know they can't have this room like this with a toddler in the house and yet here it was in all it's horrible scattered glory.

All over the place I was finding things that shouldn't be.  Legos were all over the floor.  A loose screw that had been knocked out of a rocking moose was just left on the floor.  Nerf darts were everywhere. Polly Pocket and her dimiutive accessories were all over the place and made me realize that like her friend Barbie, she and her friends had just earned the status of personna non grata.  Glass bowls that aren't even supposed to be in the basement were precariously perched in the most unlikely places.  Let's not forget the cache of dirty socks and candy wrappers that were also stashed all over the place.  I wanted to scream, but since everyone was sleeping and Bryan was jet lagged I didn't.  I went and grabbed a trash bag instead.

Like Barbie before her, Polly and all her friends were rounded up and stuffed into a zip lock bag destined to be donated.  I don't like to trash perfectly good toys just because my girls won't put them away.

Barbie was banished years ago, but I spared a few select dolls.  Since the great Barbie round up during Advent of 2011 I have had a take no prisoners policy with Barbie accessories and dolls that are left out where they do not belong.  They get picked up and tossed either in the trash or the donation pile.  At this point we have two Barbie cars, an Ariel doll, two or three outfits and a giant Little Tikes doll house.  I'm at the point now where I want to dismantle the doll house and put it in the attic or just sell it.

But back to the mountains of scattered toys.  I've come to realize that a big part of our problem is attachment.  I keep toys around because someone gave it as a gift and I know they spent a nice bit of money on it, or I keep them for sentimental reasons.  So while my kids are attached to some of these toys, I'm also attached to some of them.

I went through the toys on Saturday and decided that some things needed to be given away and other things need to be sold.  In all the years that we've been married, I've never once done a yard sale.  I've given away just about everything that we didn't want any more. But now with a new baby on the way I started thinking that perhaps some of the toys and baby gear that we don't need or want should be sold to help fund the things that we do need or want.

The basement essentially made me realize that keeping things for the sake of keeping them isn't working and only contributes to a horrible cycle of me freaking out about the messes the kids make.  If we don't have so many toys that they can't all be put away neatly then we won't have these cataclysmic messes.

So I started to look around and see how I might organize things better.  One thing that jumped out at me was the number of block containers that we have.  We had four bins of Duplo blocks, two huge containers of Mega Blocks, a stack of wood unit block sets, and more Lego containers than any family of ten ought to have (bearing in mind that we're a family of five with one on the way).  Madness.  Pure madness.  And then I realized that the manufacturer supplied containers, while they're very nice aren't practical when it comes to organizing and storing this products efficiently if you're like us and have thousands upon thousands of blocks in the house.  So I decided it was time to detach myself from original manufacture packaging.  It was time to face it, no one is ever going to say "Ooh, you have the Costco sized box of primary colored Mega Blocks from 2002!  Wow, that's worth a mint!"  Same goes for the 2003 container of Duplo blocks or even, the GASP, hard to find Mickey Mouse Duplo blocks that Katie just got for Christmas.  I decided to start out with a big clear (so I can see if the kids are stashing toys that don't belong) 66 qt container and see two sets of Mega Blocks would fit.  They did!  So that gave me the confidence to get another container the same size to consolidate all of the Duplo blocks into one bin, and two smaller ones to hold some of the girls Legos.  It really has made a big difference and I believe it is a big step in helping the girls get a handle on being able to put their toys away neatly.

I also thought about a post I recently saw on Like Mother, Like Daughter about a closet re-do that Auntie Leila did.  She brought up a lot of valid points with regards to stacking items and setting things up so you're not setting things up for failure.  So I took a look at the games in our under the stairs closet and the laundry room.  I decided to remove some games and toys that haven't been touched in years and likely won't be touched.  Games that I despise, like Pretty Pretty Princess, went into the donate pile.  And even games that I really like, such as Monopoly weren't safe.  I asked myself if I really "needed" five different versions of Monopoly.  After talking with Bryan I decided that I didn't and I chose two versions to keep.  I did the same with Candy Land.

I think with better organization and an increase in detachment things will bet better and my sanity will stay in tact.  At least I hope it will.

The pitfalls of being a neat freak

Being a neat freak isn't the easiest thing to be.  Couple that with perfectionism and you have one lethal combination.

Today I decided that I was going to straighten up the kitchen, finish the remaining laundry and then spend the day playing with Ellie.  I can say I played with Ellie a little bit if you count me walking around the block while she rode her bike as playing.  Now that it's quarter to four I think I had yet another day that was a flaming failure.  I accomplished a lot, it just wasn't what I had planned.

After Ellie and I circled the block on her bike she decided she wanted to play with her jump rope.  I tried to show her how it was done, but there are just some things that kids don't catch on to until they're developmentally ready to grasp the concept.  Ellie wants to jump rope but she's just not there, and I realized that at 33 32 (I keep forgetting my age and have thought I was a year older than I actually am for the past month, this has happened in the past as well.) I'm just not the jump roper that I used to be.

I'm not sure how it happened, but after I looked back into the garage I was suddenly inspired to sweep it and in true If You Give a Mouse a Cookie form, I wound up spending my day cleaning the garage.  It's almost entirely swept out and it's been reorganized in many areas.  Cobwebs have been vacuumed off of toys, rubbermaid totes and various items that have been in the garage.  I gathered all of the recycle paper and filled our can.  I sorted stuff for Good Will and set other things aside for the trash.  I have determined that I will scream the next time a grandparent or great aunt decides to give my kids more bubbles.  I have at least a gallon of bubble soap which my kids almost never touch.  I have seen more termite swarmer wings that I care to recall and I have determined that my lovely family needs to stop leaving their boots, soccer cleats and sneakers in the garage.

If I wasn't a neat freak, I think my day would have been much different.  My perfectionistic tendencies didn't help either.  I probably could have walked away from the garage after a few minutes of sweeping if I wasn't determined to try for a perfectly organized garage.  The garage isn't done and I still have work to do in the house.  Poor Ellie didn't get the one on one time with me that I had planned on either.

Maybe someday I'll learn to take it easy.  God only knows when or if that day will come.

Think they'll get the message?

For three days now I have sent my children to the basement to play and have told them that the giant mess needs to be cleaned up. I'm a neat freak. I like everything to be in it's designated place. Messes and disorder really bother me. Last night I reminded the girls at least three times that they needed to make sure the basement was clean before bed. So imagine my irritation when I see that the Legos finally got picked up, but in exchange Barbie pieces, play food and sidewalk chalk had been strewn about. It is taking everything in me to not straighten up the basement myself and ban the kids from playing with their toys. (That's my unhealthy obsession with perfection trying to creep in and take over.) So with a full week left before Christmas, I decided to see if a little not so subtle reminder will be the kick in the pants my girls seem to need. Think it will work?

Powder room trash picking, anyone?

The weekend is over and the house is surprisingly clean considering I've had Bryan home for the past three days.  I liken Bryan to Pig Pen from the Peanuts comics.  All he has to do is walk in the door and I have an instant mess on my hands.  Usually it's  just his back pack, shoes, keys, and work related stuff that seems to get tossed all over in the kitchen and family room.  Given that I'm an absolute neat freak, this drives me insane.  

It's essentially the same routine when Madeline comes home from school or soccer.  Everything she brings home winds up strewn all over my kitchen.  When you operate under the delusion that kitchens are just there to look nice, it can make you a little crazy when your clean countertops have keys, random small toys, and school work covering them at the end of the day.  

Ellie is my resident toy scatterer.  I'm fairly certain that God sent her to help me learn to lighten up when it comes to trying to have a perfectly maintained home.  Ellie makes it her business to ensure that there is always a small mess somewhere in the house.  She doesn't want me to be idle.  

Oscar has also picked up on this let's keep Mommy busy routine.  He scatters his toys all over in the kitchen and family room so I can have the pleasure of tripping over them while I'm in a cleaning frenzy.  What a wonderful addition to the family he has turned out to be!  His latest obsession has been trash picking treasures from the powder room trash can and scurrying back to his crate where he can eat them and just chew on them to make revolting messes.  Just as I was getting ready to blog about something totally different, I hear out four-footed friend scamper from the powder room en route to his crate.  I picked up on the rustling paper sound and realized that he was up to something.  Apparently, we found the paper wrapper to a roll of toilet paper.  Exciting!  I was fortunate enough to get it away from him before he could create a mess that would have left me gagging.  I am totally revolted by wet paper products.  The sight of them make me feel sick to my stomach.  I am also unwilling to come into contact with blobs of wet paper products, unless I'm cleaning up a spill or cleaning windows or counter tops.  I have felt this way about wet paper products since elementary school when some girls used to wad up TP, wet it and toss it on the ceiling or mirrors in the girls room. GAG!

So now that my neat freaks anonymous digression is out of the way, I suppose I can get blog about what I came here to do.  Although, I am wondering if it's going to look half as exciting as my neat freak and wet paper product revelations.  Probably not, but if you're bored and looking for something to read, as I often am, this will just give you something do to.  Amazingly helpful I am!

I apparently met my quota for inappropriate social gaffes for the week already.  I managed to get it out of the way before 9am on Sunday.  Since Bryan is taking some time off from church (insert my eye roll and loud sigh here, please), I took the girls to the 7:45 Mass yesterday.  I typically get up around 6am on Sunday so I can have some time to myself in the morning, so I decided to get the girls up, dressed and out the door in time for the earlier Mass.  It was a bit of a time crunch for me since Madeline moves slow in the morning and I got up a little late, but we made it there on time.  My reward was not having to her the Folk Song group this week. Yay!  So my black-eyed Ellie sat on the end of the pew and apparently caught Fr. Vic's attention (not to mention she was making faces and sticking her tongue out when Fr. Mazz, our pastor was making some very long announcements at the end of Mass, and I'm sure he saw her).  So on our way out Fr. Vic wants to know how she got the black eye.  Mind you, I've been getting this question and judgemental looks all week.  Explaining that my child stood on a rocking moose, fell, cut under her eye and had a big goose egg has been getting the "I'm not buying that explanation" response from the general public.  If you know Ellie, then you know that the explanation is accurate and you wouldn't be surprised in the first place that the kid has a black eye.  So I jokingly respond to him that we beat her.  The stunned look on his face and all those around us was priceless.  I quickly followed up with the "she fell and hit her face" answer, but I don't think anyone brought it.  So there's my social gaffe for the week.  I told Bryan about it and he told me that it's not funny to joke around about that.  Hmm...if he was with me yesterday morning, perhaps this gaffe wouldn't have happened.  Either way, I'm getting tired of fielding black eye  questions.  I hope the bruise goes away soon. The cut has healed nicely and I think she will not have a scar from it.  Note to self: not funny to explain child's injuries with what I think will be a witty response, just stick to the crazy stranger than fiction facts. Oh, and continue to lament the fact that most people are not going to get or appreciate my sarcastic and often off-beat sense of humor.

So Spring soccer is now officially over.  Madeline's last game was yesterday.  The rain cleared up just in time for the game.  Unfortunately, it was pretty cold out there.  I am not officially not looking forward to the cold soccer games in October and November and by this fall I'll have two kids playing.  Did I make a mistake in signing Ellie up to play this year?  I guess we'll find out this fall.  I suppose we'll be busy on the weekends for most of the fall with soccer games on Saturday and Sunday along with Ellie's CCD classes on Sunday mornings.  Madeline played really well.  She has come such a long way from when she started playing last August.  She didn't score any goals yesterday but she came close about 5 or 6 times.  In the past, she would just kind of give the ball a little tap when trying to score, but now she's out there kicking the ball with some force.  She took out the other team's goalie with one of her kicks yesterday.  She hit the girl square in the face with the ball and made her nose bleed.  I know it was awful that she hurt the other girl, but I have to say I was so proud of my daughter.  She can kick the ball really  hard now AND it gets some air!