Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Life's a Mess

Dear friends, here we are near the end of February with spring only a month away. Right now I feel very much like a bear, hibernating in her cave. So very close to the earth reawakening and filling up with new life and yet still very much a barren winter landscape. It makes me not want to do anything, just stop awhile til it's time to exhale again.
We had snow on Sunday! I was totally unprepared for that and if you will recallI had already written it down in blog form (which is very much like stone, no?) that it absolutely would not happen this winter. So, there we were, Tait, the girls and I, out for the afternoon having lunch, buying groceries and picking out carpet for the girls' room and here it comes!It was lovely. Didn't last too awfully long, just long enough too cover the ground pretty well and send the girls off to bed with visions of snowflakes dancing through their heads. It melted away fairly quickly the next day, giving the girls just enough time to go out in it, stomp around a bit and come back in declaring it too cold and wet.
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I thought you might want a look at my dirty house today. No, really, I was in the middle of pulling things out from under the girls' beds... yarn, toys, beeswax, orange peels, socks, and decided instead of getting aggravated I would grab the camera and see these wonderful, childish messes from another angle.
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Much loved books that are taken to bed every night, animals, handmade books...
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Crayons, coloring books and bits of paper all over and under the dining table. I couldn't bear to show you under the table, I shudder to think of it!
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This one must climb!
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Baby dolls abandoned in the middle of the floor. What a mess they make! I go through the house all of the day, every day, picking up after them. I frequently begrudge it. I frequently tell Tait, when he comes home from work, that all I've gotten accomplished all day was cleaning one mess after another of theirs. Getting them to help me clean is mostly a battle. A battle that I don't want to fight. Rebecca, of Bending Birches, wrote just the other day about this. It has been on my mind and so her post really resonated with me. Modeling and imitation.. this really is the key to so much of child rearing, isn't it? I am trying to be very mindful of the attitude that I bring to my work, remember that three sets of small eyes are always watching. One day they will be ready to make the decision on their own about keeping their space, they will get there. But I want them to get there without the battles and frustration, instead at their own pace (which may very well be when they move out and have to clean their own home).
I have to admit that it feels like home to see their childish things about.

Do you have any tried and true and gentle and respectful way to deal with children's messes?

Comments (7)

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I tidy up about three times a day. Sometimes I get help and sometimes not. The way we cope is to keep the things that are out for play to a minimum. If it's not been played with recently, I set it aside for awhile and see if it gets asked for. If not, I pack it away for a yard sale or goodwill, or I pack it away for later when it might be seen in a new light on a gloomy day. That way, messes are made, but they are smaller and quick to clean up.
It's the kids' job to pick up their toys in the living room every night before bed. They get a sticker on a chart when they do a good job, and when they collect seven stickers, they get a small prize -- a sheet of stickers or a new can of Play-Doh, etc. Something small and semi-consumable, usually ;-) On Saturday night, all the toys that have migrated downstairs over the week get taken back up to their rooms.

Now if I could just finish unpacking the last 10 boxes...
You could try picking things up and putting them away where the kids can't reach them. If they ask for a certain toy, ask them where they saw it last. Ask them where it SHOULD be. Have a gentle talk about taking care of things that are important to them. Return the toy this time, and next time ask how it got lost again. If it happens a third time I would not be returning it for a few days. Or if they do not ask for it for a week or more, assume it is no longer all that important. By then you may have run out of room to hide other things.
The kids will also have to learn that when new things come in, older ones should be shared, donated to others.
Yes, less stuff and organizers were he can easily take things and put them back.
Like this I made, I does not solve it but helps a lot. http://nahuatlv.blogspot.com/2011/04/finally.html
We also have a Library place at home, but as in a public one, we have a cart (actually a box) for the books that he has seen, so he cant take out as many as he wants as long as he leaves them there after and nowere else.
If we can pick up in 15 minutes before each meal & bedtime, that seems to be the right amount of toys to keep in rotation. It is too overwhelming to just say "pick up your toys". So I will pick up the toys in a certain spot (with the toddler- and I will tell her one toy at a time to pick up and put away), Child A will pick up the blocks, Child B will pick up the figures, etc... they get a look of sheer overwhelm if the task is too general. Small manageable jobs, done together while singing our clean up song. Occasionally we have a case of the whinies but being silly helps- like pretending I am a certain toy and saying "OH NO! HELP ME! I am going to get stepped on and I am SCARED!!!" Making them laugh usually snaps them out of their ill humor. And when there is a horrible mess and I know I can't handle orchestrating the clean up without losing my temper (some days it is just like that) I sweep them up into a pile, put them in a garbage bag, and put them in the basement until we can calmly and cheerfully put them away.
Nope, like you I spend most of the day picking up messes. I try not to fuss about it, and sometimes I get a bit of help, but I am waiting for the day when they help out as well. For now, it is just me walking around singing silly little songs cleaning up. I should note though, my 5 year old suddenly is obsessed with emptying the dishwasher. He sits and waits for it to be done and then loves to pull all the stuff out when it is still hot. This works for me!
"model, model, model" My husband and I say this to each other frequently when one of us is stressed about the mess or the chaos, or the whatever. This little chant makes us laugh at ourselves and keep things in perspective.

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