Before kids, our home had that clean-but-lived-in vibe. Guests weren't asked to remove their shoes, socks could occasionally be found on the floor, and there were probably numerous smudges on the window panes. White glove treatment be damned, we didn't spend every minute (or even small chunks) of our spare time cleaning out vents with alcohol-swabbed Q-tips or polishing our baseboards with oil soap. My husband and I have only been married for three years, and we both carried into our merged lifestyles some hobbies and collections that may not have qualified us for an episode of Hoarders, but took up a fair amount of space in our living quarters. For the Mister, it was an insanely large quantity of video games, movies, and action figures - an entire room of them, which was unceremoniously dismantled to make room for the twin's nursery and an extra linen closet. I must say, he took it like a champ. It seemed unfair that my wooden cat collection was easily kept intact upon one shelf in our master bedroom, so to take one for Team Richardson, I stopped collecting wooden cats altogether. I also had at least two tall, stuffed bookcases full of books that I considered to be the Holy Grail of my personal possessions. I had no reservations about throwing out the paperback horror fiction and the trash novels, but I wasn't about to part with my hardback non-fiction with the likes of Daniel Dennett, Stephen Pinker and Richard Dawkins. The third-edition Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman was quite expensive. The Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain and George Carlin books were keepers, too, even though they fell into the paperback category. Pretty much any dead, highly-acclaimed author had a permanent slot on my shelves, but in the spirit of fairness, I got rid of a huge lot of books. Oh, the things you do for love! And then ... the children were born. A whole new level of clutter and disorganization started to surface, and who would have time to play video games or curl up with a good book again? Not us.
In just two short years, what seemed like a spacious 3-bedroom house (complete with a large outdoor storage that once served as a man cave) began to shrink before our very eyes. The addition of three children brought about so much extra stuff, it felt like we were just one changing table or diaper box or bouncy seat away from having to sleep in our Jeeps. We had to act fast to get it under control. It's still a work in progress, and if a visitor popped in unannounced tomorrow morning, they'd probably trip over some foam building blocks or step on a Lego. There's no longer an extra bedroom for overnight guests, and even if we were hard pressed to accommodate a family member, they'd likely find a stray hair or two hanging around the bathroom sink. We joke about the hazards an unsuspecting burglar would face while casing the inside of our home in the dark. There are child gates to hurdle at three strategic entry checkpoints, a wide array of musical-toy-booby-traps to be stepped on, and an obnoxious Bengal housecat who occasionally makes it inside from his lair in the attached garage to weave ninja-like underfoot while you're trying to walk a straight line. Suffice it to say, we slumber soundly every night, and an elaborate home security system isn't to be thanked for that. But don't get any ideas ... as parents of multiples, we're practically seasoned soldiers when it comes to sleeping with one eye open and one ear cocked.
A stay-at-home Mom has a responsibility to keep some kind of order in the household, and that loosely translates to being able to find matching socks for the entire crew, have clean dishes to eat off of in the event we run out of paper plates, and to keep the fall hazards to a minimum when you're housing a toddler, two infants, and two very ungraceful 40-somethings. I've devised a Tip Sheet based on organizational strategies that work for us, and I'm eager to share it:
TOY CONTROL
- Rotate, rotate, rotate. I can't stress this enough. Toddlers amass so many toys in their first two years of life that it's almost embarrassing. While we're happy to be able to provide our kids with an abundance of play goodies, to a third world citizen, it would surely seem gluttonous. Since their little brains haven't quite mastered the art of keeping a tight inventory on their goodies, it's easy to sneak out pieces and rotate in new ones without them ever becoming aware that they've been jacked. We try to keep one medium-sized wicker basket full of small, assorted playthings such as blocks, jumbo Legos, balls and miscellaneous crap that our son loves to scatter, stack and litter our floor with. These can easily be scooped up in one large sweep and thrown back into basket for quick clean-up. When they're not looking, throw out those unnecessary, overused items. Do they REALLY need to hang onto that plastic water bottle that makes a cool rattling sound when shaken? If the kid no longer claps at it after it performs it's function ... get rid of it.
- Larger items, such as dump trucks, ride-on toys, stick horses, that godforsaken ball-popping noisy lawnmower - only a handful allowed out at a time, the rest stowed away out of eyesight of both us and Junior. They can't whine for what they cannot see, and since an 18-month old has absolutely no real need for order, it's not as difficult to pick up and put away in a flash. For us, "putting away" usually means quickly yet neatly lining these items up near our fireplace mantle so that we can remember what shade of wood we once enjoyed as our floor space.
- Another piece of advice: Give friends and family member subtle hints when it comes to buying gifts for your child. Don't be afraid to ask for clothes, if your kids need them. Books, rather than stuffed animals. If your child is still in diapers or Pull-ups, let them know how much it would help to not have to buy those, and how you can recycle the box for fun craft projects. For my son's first birthday, he received toys that to this day he hasn't even played with yet, and probably never will get around to, and will be lost on his twin sisters, because it's icky boy stuff. If the toys can't be handed down, or returned to store, or if you think your child just has too much of a good thing - don't be afraid to donate them. If your toddler is like mine, they're more fascinated with and get more miles out of the actual boxes and tissue paper that they come in.
KID'S CLOTHING
- Get over your nostalgia. Sure, there's going to be a few monogrammed or embroidered newborn items that's always going to hold a special place in your heart. That's understandable, because us women are very sentimental creatures, and letting go of things that once made our hearts go pitter-patter is an extremely difficult and guilt-tinged undertaking. But do you really need to save their first blanche white hospital onesie with the little hand mittens attached? I can promise you that as the years go on, you will find dust rags with just as much utilitarian purpose. Keep a small (and I stress: tiny) box of newborn things that are dear to you, or that you'd like to perhaps share with their children someday, but be willing to part with the rest of it. A good rule of thumb would be: If it can't fit inside the baby book, it goes.
- Be thrifty and exchange, consign, or become an online yard sale aficionado with the clothing your kids have gently used and grown out of. Just last month I earned over two hundred dollars peddling kid's clothing online. You'd be surprised how many pages on Facebook alone there are just for that very enterprise. Group them according to size, sell them in lots instead of piecing them out, and be sure to throw out anything damaged or stained. No one wants to dress their kids in a formula-stained onesie or a pair of footed pajamas with fabric so pilled that it's scratchy to the touch. Don't expect what you paid for it either, unless there are items new with tags or boutique clothing in excellent condition. You may even get lucky and find a cool mother or two that happens to have a child growing out of clothes in your child's size group who also has a newborn (or two, like I did!) that needs clothes for some even swaps. Out with the old to make room for the new!
- For my twins, I keep one dresser drawer full of clothes that they can grow into, separated by individual drawers for every 3-month growth/size increment. By default, girls have more clothes than boys, and WAY more accessories. Most of these items you cannot live without, because, well - they're girls, and photo-ops are fun. That said, you'll want to keep them organized, or their nurseries are going to look like a women's dressing room the day after a Macy's black Friday sale. I keep headbands and barrettes either attached to their respective matching outfits, or rolled up nicely in a see-through mesh bag. Socks are kept in a basket, as are burp cloths, fancy bibs, run-of-the-mill lunch-time-at-home bibs with green bean and prune stains that refuse to come out, and hats or other head coverings. We bought two cribs, but the girls are inseparable and I use the one they don't sleep in to keep at least two week's worth of outfits at the ready, so I don't even have to get into the dresser drawers. This eliminates folding altogether, another massive timesaver. Dressy clothes are kept hanging in the closet, as they aren't used as frequently, because really - who gets to go to formal events with three kids under two? Moreover, who would want to?
BATHTUB TOYS AND TOILETRIES
- We keep most of our after-bath items near the changing tables, like powder, lotion, aquaphor, etc. For the actual soap, bubble bath, head-rinse cup, soft washcloths and baby scrubbies, we go old-school and keep them on the back of the toilet lid for easy access, as it's an arm's reach from our tub. I suppose you could get fancy and devise some sort of cool basket or hanging apparatus, but we're usually in and out of the tub pretty quick, and I just haven't bothered. I keep a small plastic bin that I can throw all the adult shampoo/body soap/face wash, etc. to be stowed away quickly and out of the reach of a grasping 18-month old.
- I'm not going to fib and say I've done this yet, but it's absolutely one of the most clever ideas I've seen on Pinterest: affixing a shower curtain rod low in your shower and hanging wire baskets to keep the tub toys in. They are all in one place, are able to drain completely so mold or mildew won't accumulate in or around them, and it just looks tidy. MUST TRY THIS! Right now our twins are too small to play in the tub, and little enough to be bathed inside the tub on one of those mesh hammock bathers. We just pile my son's toys on top of the bather and keep it on one end of the counter. I have vowed to get crafty and do the shower curtain rod job before the year is up.
- All that excess water that gets splashed on the floor at bath time? Have a spray bottle of Pine-Sol or 409 handy and a towel dedicated to swabbing, and BAM! Your bathroom floors get cleaned every time.
I hope to add more tips and tricks of the trade as time goes on, but for now I will leave this long diatribe with a warning I wish I'd heeded: Do not, under any circumstance, get into the habit of saving your diaper boxes for anything. You'll think that you'll need them for something. You'll do an occasional craft, or pack something up, but before you know it, you will have a garage full of Huggies and Pampers boxes and it will take DAYS to break them down and dispose of them. If you're a family with multiples, they pile up really fast, and I'm here right now to tell you: It's not worth the extra clutter or the time it takes to break them down and recycle them when they are stacked eye-level in rows of twenty in your garage. I implore you - don't save the boxes. Save yourself the headache, and just break those mothers down NOW! Odds are, your To-Do list is full enough with other chores, tasks and pipe dreams of making your house more tidy and organized.
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