Working Vacation

I should have taken "before" and "after" pictures, I swear.

Matt and I spent Tuesday morning cleaning up the playroom. We sorted toys, threw out a bunch, set aside a bunch more to donate to the thrift store, and put everything into bins and baskets. I tackled the kids' stuff in the living room, too -- mostly Alex's tub o' toys and their bookshelf, which was a hideous mess.

Both kids seemed completely thrilled by the changes when they got home. Alex gleefully pulled a dozen toys off his shelves that he had forgotten he had to show them to me, and (I swear) worked his way straight through his entire collection of board books, reacquainting himself with old favorites and happily discovering new ones.

Penny was vocal in her appreciation of the change, and how neat and organized everything was. She's not even whining (so far) that we're making her put things back in their organized spots rather than just any-old-place when she cleans up. And for at least the next week or so, I'm doing inspections after her nightly clean-up, to make sure things are going where they belong. (I'm not penalizing her for putting things in the wrong places, for the time being, just having her correct it.) She's even getting involved, to a small extent -- she protested our having put her Batarangs in the dress-up box (even though that's where her Batman costume stuff is). Honestly, I don't care how her stuff is organized, as long as it stays organized and not in a huge jumble on the floor, so Matt helped her move all the Batarangs to their own separate bin, which is now the Batarang bin. Or possibly the Batman Gadgets bin, or something of that sort. Matt is intending to make labels for all the bins, but we didn't have batteries to fit the label maker he bought.

Then on Wednesday morning, we tackled the kids' rooms. Penny's room yielded a lot of stuff to go into storage or the thrift store, because her closet had been stuffed with stuff belonging to Matt and I (old magazines, my old stereo system, etc.) that we just hadn't gotten around to ditching yet, and a big box of old-favorite baby toys I'd been saving for Alex that are now pretty much superfluous, as he has more than enough of his own things. With the closet cleared out, we made it the new home for her stuffed animals that are too big to fit on shelves. (They're still in a big pile on the floor, but at least the pile is behind closed doors.)

Alex's room produced a lot of junk, too, but we didn't tackle his closet quite as hard, because he doesn't really need closet space just yet. Since he doesn't have free run of the stairs yet, all his toys are downstairs anyway, so Matt and I are happy to continue using his closet for our random junk. We'll figure out what to do with that clutter in another two or three years, when he's old enough to actually need his closet for his stuff. So the change in his room wasn't nearly as dramatic.

In both rooms, we sorted through all their clothes and packed up the things that are too small, and threw away things that are stained beyond use. I found out this past weekend that the thrift store is accepting kids' stuff again (they have to ship it up to their home office for lead testing, but at least they'll take it) so we gleefully dumped several boxes of outgrown clothes and more toys than we could shake a stick at on them.

We cleaned off the banister and the bookshelf in the upstairs hall, too -- being flat surfaces, they've both collected quite a detritus of stuff that doesn't belong there. We got the banister cleared off, but I was kind of running out of steam by the time we got to the bookshelf. There's still a bunch of old magazines there that should probably be sorted and most of them dumped into the recycling bin, when I get a chance. And some books that I don't need or want anymore and can take to the used bookstore.

Amazingly, that only took us up to lunchtime. So we knocked off cleaning at that point. We took a load of garbage to my office's dumpster (our own was already full to overflowing), took two boxes of books to the used bookstore (and picked up a handful of Ramona and Junie B. books for Penny) then went to Panera for lunch. After lunch, I dragged Matt with me to the Old Navy store to see if they had any fall stuff out. We were there entirely too long (but I came away with five shirts with long or three-quarter-length sleeves, so I have a minimum wardrobe for the fall), so we stopped at the bank to cash some checks, but didn't have time for me to get my allergy shots before heading back to pick Penny up from school.

So instead, after we got Penny, we relaxed around the house for a bit and then I took her with me to get my shots and pick Alex up from daycare, so Matt could get an hour of peace and calm.

So it was anything but a quiet day and a half off, but we got a lot done, and the house looks so much better, it's just incredible.

Now, we just need to make time to tackle our crap!