Clean Sweep.

There is a certain type of mom that drives my dad nuts (I am sure, actually it is more than one, but we will be focusing on only one type today).

It is the mom who sends out the list of what to get their child fro Christmas or a birthday that goes something like this:


Barbie, the one in the red dress.
My little ponies, medium size, not large or mini
doll clothes, for cabbage patch dolls only
etc..



He says this takes the spontaneity out of shopping.

I think this may be an extreme example, but after spending my mid day wading through Rylee's room, I can totally see the intent.


Her room is a huge mess. The majority of the problem (besides her being a slob) is stuffed animals. But beyond that, it is that she has so many different sets of toys. Like she has her barbies, her my little ponies, and her baby doll, but beyond that there are several little partial sets of things. Since there isn't a lot of any one of these, they get all thrown together and then end up in a big mess. So when she goes to play with her littlest pet shop toys, she has to dig through all the other stuff first.

And she is 5, so by the time she has it all out on the floor, she usually forgets what she was looking for.

So I am going on a purging binge. Rylee's room first. Then the little boys' room. Then Wyatt's. The others do not know their rooms are next.

I am not just organizing like I have always done in the past, I am getting stuff out. I filled garbage bags with toys today. There will be many more to come.
I will probably be having a garage sale in the very near future, with massive amounts of toys and kids clothes.
I am also getting out all baby toys. I do not need them, Dilly doesn't play with them. No one does, they simply take up space.

Lonnie couldn't be happier with this process, anything that involves organizing and de-cluttering is good with him.


I am also considering a gift intervention of sorts. Being as we have 3 birthdays in Oct. and that leads into the holidays and all that, I am going to see if the gifts can be more focused on time spent with each of them, maybe an outing or special event rather than a thing to be thrown on the floor and forgotten.

I want my children to learn to value people, memories, and time spent together, not stuff. I know for some people around us, they will totally get what I am saying. A few others might not. But we will see how it goes.

Tomorrow I will finish her room and move on to the others. I am trying to get everything in order before the kiddos start school.
It would just be really nice if I could get them all to be clean at the same moment.

My mom tells me this will happen one day. The day they all leave.

I am not pushing for that. I will take the clutter and laughter over order and silence any day, we are just trying to make the clutter be a little bit more manageable.

(Funny thing is now the grand kids all go to my mom's house and make a mess, know what she does when she sees it? She smiles and leaves it, huh, weird huh?)