A couple people in my life have the mistaken idea that I am ultra-organized.
I really don’t know where they get that notion. I guess I am usually on time to things. I normally have what I need with me (I don’t run out of diapers or snacks). I pretty much always have a cold drink with us in the car and I pack our lunches if we are out for the day. I guess in those ways, I am organized. I am somewhere between prepared and slightly-cluttered.
But you should see the floor of my car. And the books piled lopsided beside my bed. And then take a look at my closet.
And please, please don’t go near the toy room.
It
is
bad.
Apparently the two individuals who keep telling me I am sooo organized (maybe I am just less cluttered than them) haven’t peaked inside the girls’ playroom lately.
The girls don’t even like to go in there. I know, that is really bad. That is what a playroom should be: a repository for all of their toys and a place they can play and build things. It should be organized. Unfortunately, it is usually ankle deep in stuff. Junk really. Plastic stuff.
Okay, so they are two and six and they CAN keep it clean if I keep them accountable to pick up several times throughout the day. But it is usually on me to discipline them to be organized. Kinda silly when I am a bit cluttered myself. And then when one dumps a box and another box is dumped, everything gets shuffled together like a deck of cards and then its all over.
However, about once every six months I overhaul the room. I throw away so many things without homes or boxes: pieces of old games, weird plastic toys from Happy Meals, naked dolls without heads. Then I take everything that is left and put it back into the boxes/bins/shelves where they belong and label it all.
Today was the day. Three hours and I still have a couple remnant boxes of plastic junk left to sift through.
And here is the amazing thing: As I was cleaning and I was beginning to match dolls with clothes and toys with all of their accouterments, they began to play well together. No screaming. No arguing. Of course they feel more at ease with their surroundings and with each other when things are clean. I feel more at ease in my home when it is clean. The whole afternoon they didn’t ask for the television once. They were busy with their “new” toys.
I wish my house could be featured in Cookie magazine with organic hemp wooden toys and perfectly painted murals on my playroom walls. I wish my children would check out toys like a library with their little scrawly signatures on a card. I wish they would sit quietly in the middle of my vacuumed living room with one simple box of like objects. I wish I couldn’t go to bed at night until each and every toy was neatly placed on it’s labeled shelf.
That just isn’t me. I do my best to keep my home clean and comfortable and sometimes things get left undone. Like the playroom. Usually.
But tonight it’s different. The kids are bathed and quiet and are playing in the middle of a (unvacuumed) floor with boxes of organized toys. And I can live up to my friends’ unreal view of an organized Sarah. At least in one room. And probably only for tonight.
We’ll see which one dumps first tomorrow. I think summer begs it.
Sarah I found your blog through Chrissie’s. I so hear you with the toy room. Our home is too small for a toy room…so it is their rooms that are always looking like this. I too clean it every few months…and just throw things out…or to Amvets. It is unbelievable to me how well they will play in their room on the day I organize…and the next few days. You have motivated me to do it again…hopefully soon!
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the day that I get to put all the puzzle pieces back where they go, and game pieces back to their game, and blocks back with the right set.
I may need help, because I also LOVE when I find a random piece that had been missing from something!
It is amazing how much better the girls play when it is organized.
Do you enjoy cleaning out your purse too?
One day they’ll do it…one. day. somewhere. in. time.
What did you do with all of the pastic toys?? I am over-run with my friends hand-me-downs. I need to purge BAD.
I just got donated four large trash bags to goodwill full of toys. we are getting ready because our home IS going to be featured in Cookie magazine next month… Ha!!
Sometimes people get the misperception of me as well. Not so!! And it’s hard to figure out how to train the kids to be more organized when I’m so bad at it myself. I seem to only be organized in a couple places at a time.
We have instituted a “10 minute tidy” which is helping a bit. Whenever things are getting a little chaotic, we take 10 so that hopefully it doesn’t get too out of control! The kids seem to cope with that better… short and sweet.
Hi Sarah. I found your blog through Chrissie’s too. Organization, or my lack thereof has been on my mind a LOT lately. I could really relate to what you had to say.
I also enjoyed reading your weight loss story. Thanks so much for sharing that! Even though I’ve never had to “really” deal with weight loss, your testimony ministered to me about how caught up we can get with the outward while the inward is wasting a way. Not something I want to pass down to my kids….thank God that He teaches us to find our worth in Him alone!
Someday they will learn to do it themselves. Then there is the one that just isn’t organized. In my case Hope, she never wants to throw away anything, not even the broken Happy meal toys. We wait until she goes to summer camp and then Craig and I attack her room with black trash bags.
I have noticed that the older she gets the fewer bags we need. I think that is because she has grown out of Happy Meals.
Exactly.
It’s funny, though. I’m doing this exact thing with our “loft” area, which has been completely overrun with toys. We’re having a garage sale on Saturday, so I’m rushing through it now! I should be busy there instead of typing on my pc… but I love your blog!
Christine:)
*who has been completely overtaken by her 5-year-old triplets*
I sometimes just surrender to the mess. It’s a never ending project, but someday I’m sure we’ll miss that mess and wish our kids were still at home with us….I try to look at it that way.
Have a great weekend Sarah!
Sorting, cleaning and GETTING RID of toys is on my list of things to do before my husband gets home from Iraq. I’m thinking that one job alone could keep my busy from now till then.
i think we all have areas of our home or life that are not organized. they need a little reorganization a few times a year so we can sit back and say AHH! I am in in the midst of that deep cleaning, organizing, finding new homes for things stage right now. It feels good to have everything in its place. Truthfully, I would like to do it more often but there just doesn’t seem to be the time for the overhaul except a few times a year.