Oh Monday. Sometimes, I dread you. Sometimes, I welcome you. Today, I am just thankful to be warm in my home.
Yesterday, horrible storms and tornados tore across Central Illinois, and in one town about an hour away, many people lost their homes and all of their belongings. I was with my sister in law in Bloomington when the storms came through, and we ended up taking cover at a gas station in a bathroom. Not my favorite place to be, but we were safe. After 15 minutes or so, they let us out and the sun was shining. All throughout the day we were hearing of more damage. At home, things were fine. My husband’s grandpa lost a small shed, but everything in it (mostly old tires and tanks) was still there. A lot of people were out of power until late last night, and I have been counting my blessings for sure.
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Today I have been cleaning house, laundry, and beginning to instill some new rules around here. On Saturday, I went through the kid’s toy room and toy box, got rid of broken toys, and grouped together similar things in Ziploc bags so that little things don’t always end up at the bottom of the toy box.
This was at the half way point. You can see the carpet! hooray!
Kenley’s baby dolls and all of their stuff has a place. The Hot Wheels cars have a place. The Planes toys have a place. I could hear the angels singing!!
Then came time to clean up the toys and put them away at the end of the day. You would have swore that my kids had thought that the world was ending. I was so frustrated! Brayden was just whining that someone had to help him clean up– but I stood my ground. I worked hard to organize the toys so that they were all together so they could play, and all I get back was a bunch of whining? (I know, its part of this mothering thing.) So I have had to really enforce the rule of picking up (which was always there, apparently ziploc bags make it more difficult) and to top it off, Kenley has been fighting bedtime and naps like WHOA.
Luckily, we don’t have a lot on the calendar this week– so I am hoping we can transition to some new rules and a better schedule without running around all of the time.
What are your rules for your kids about cleaning up toys?
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