Friday, March 23, 2012

STUFF, part II



Okay, today I really went to town with the de-stuffing.  I'm starting at the top of my house and going down.  The top is Max and Mimi's rooms (then down to the living room/kitch/our bedroom/baby room floor, and then to the 1/2 finished basement).  My rule is once it comes down a floor, it doesn't come back up.  So by the time stuff gets to the basement, it's either find a spot or it's out to the curb or donations.  While I was cleaning the top layer I came up with two laundry baskets packed full of kids clothes that don't fit or won't fit next year.  I got another laundry basket full of clothes and blankets to wash, and a garbage bag full of junk and old stuff that's just getting tossed.  It was a big project, but I'm happy to report that their rooms look great and Max was so excited when he came home from school to his super clean and organized room :) . There's nothing under either bed (I hate stuff under the bed, even storage.  I like to look under the bed and just see a clean floor to the other side!) and the closets are nice and neat.  The kids really love having their rooms so nice and organized.  They like it way more than having junk and stuff cluttering up their rooms.  My son has a touch of the hoarding bug, so left to himself he would keep every piece of anything he ever had.  So I have to make the decisions for him at this point. I've done it before, and let me tell you, he NEVER notices.  This is because Maxwell really likes SPACE, and Maxwell doesn't play with toys.  People buy him toys, and he never plays with them.  He looks at them once.  When Max plays, he makes up games with Mimi like family or pet shop or he likes to be outside.  If it's just him, he draws or paints or writes or reads, or he'll want Chris or me to play a board game or cards with him.  He's never been into cars or anything like that.  We have a whole laundry basket full of unopened toys from Christmas in the basement that he has never opened, and truthfully I'm hoping he never will, because we don't have the room to bring them up.  Max does love his stuffed animals though, and he likes to have them set up on his bed or on his chair.  Mimi is a horse of a different color.  She loves toys, especially dolls, and she really plays with them a lot.  She loves to create a world for her dolls, and she gets really creative with it and she can go all day (I was exactly the same way as a kid. I could totally get lost in my doll world. It was the BEST).  But even she has her quirks.  She has lots of dolls of different sizes, but if they don't fit in the dollhouse, they get substantially less use in Mimi's world. And ponies and things like that get no play what-so-ever. The dollhouse is the heart of Mimi's play.  She makes up game after game with the dollhouse as the center.  When we play together she calls it a "dolls' party" and I think we've had a dolls' party every day since she's turned three or so :)  With this in mind, there's really no need to clutter their small rooms up with the things they never use.  I bagged up a big bunch of toys at the beginning of the week: stuff that's been kicking around for the longest time but never gets any action.  Well, the bags have been in the basement for the whole week and no one has mentioned a thing.  I'm going to give it three weeks, and if no one says, hey, where's my whatever junky thing, then I'll move on to the next step.  So far, so good with my STUFF spring cleaning mission!

3 comments:

  1. Heehee sounds like Max might take after his Grampa George a little bit...by the way I have a cute pic of Max and Uncle Roy on the swings together from last weekend.....I can email it to you if you like

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  2. OH ya, he definately has more than a bit of Grampa George in him :) I would LOVE that pic! My e-mail is Godislove_18@yahoo.com. Thanks Jolene!

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  3. Good work. Now if someone cleans the yard....

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