5/31/07

Begging for Help!



Time for all you lurkers to come out of hiding. I am asking for your advice. I CANNOT believe I am posting about my messy house the day after I posted that Zinabu once lived in a hut. I mean, I'm not trying to make the point that Americans are terrible consumers, but the irony is gross. Here's the deal.

I like a clean house!

Adding a 3rd child has tipped the scales, so to speak, in child paraphernalia. I don't even let my kids have that many toys. But 3 kids, with 15 toys each (some in sets like that BLASTED Littlest Pet Shop and the wretched Bionicles) and all of a sudden were at 45 toys in this house. I have a toy "library" where we keep some of their toys. It's in our creepy crawl space, so no one really goes in there. If the kids get tired of the few toys they have in their room, then they can exchange it for a toy in the library. So far that's worked. But I can't keep up. There is stuff overtaking my house. So my question is.....

Playroom or no playroom?

Right now, we have no playroom. Each kid has toys in their room, but we also have the wooden train set and puzzles and balls and Legos that belong to everyone and hang out in our basement. I'm seriously considering burning...er, I mean moving the toys to the spare bedroom/office and converting it into a fun playroom. We don't use it very much, and it would be SOOOOOO nice to have the toys in there. If you have a playroom and it works for you, please respond. Help me....


3 comments:

hmmj said...

Hi Cathy,
We have a playroom and it does dramatically cut down on the clutter in the rest of the house- but I must confess that most days it looks like a bomb exploded in there! My two year old, Ethiopian, one man demolition team mainly likes to pull everything out - he has very little interest in playing with it - just dumping it out! My personal feeling is that I can live with one room a disaster area so long as I can escape somewhere else and relax free of toys! And every night before TV is allowed my kiddos have to clean the playroom up so from 7pm till 6am it is more or less tidy! Hope that helps.

blessings,
Heather
mom to TJ (7.5 fos/adopt), Tye (5 fos/adopt) and Micah Ashenafee (23 months, Ethiopia)

Anonymous said...

Our playroom is our wrestling room and toy storage room - not so much a room they actually "play" in (unless we have grownups over and the kids are banded to the basement playroom). Although it is a NICE room - could be a bedroom - it does not make a cozy place to play b/c MOMMY does not enjoy sitting in the playroom. And as of now, they'd rather be with me! I'd rather be in the kitchen/family room area and have them drag their toys up here. When it gets to be too much crap in here, down to the playroom things go!

If you do get a playroom - we have a fantastic storage unit from Ikea with slide out bins. I took a picture of toys in categories ("guys" "dolls" "leggos" "cars and planes") Then on the outside of each bin, I put the picture so EVERYONE - read HUSBAND - can help pick up and put things back like I want them! :)


The toy room makes me able to handle the toys. (In relation to your comments about hut living, yes we have too much stuff and the fact that we have a large space to just contain the said stuff is astounding).
I do love your thoughts! I check them daily after I check my email!
Jennifer Scott

cathy said...

Keep 'em coming, folks. I loved Heather's and Jennifer's comments. Pros and cons. Pros and cons. And yes, if we do get a playroom...IKEA here we come!