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Cold coffee and snotty tissues

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 The school holidays are upon us and along with the no rush, non shouty mornings that come with it so does all the mess. Tons of it . There's the obvious food mess, plates left out, drinks spilt, crisps dropped. There's the toy mess... So many toys, endless piles of  random toys stuck together in a heap which only makes sense to a four year old. The clothes, the shoes , the paper , the art, the crayons, the knitting etc etc . Then there's the un obvious mess, the surprises you find in the most extraordinary places ... The sweet wrapper in the candle holder, the half chewed sweet behind a cushion, the underpants in the paddling pool, the Lego in the shower and so forth and so on ...
So how do we tackle all this extraordinary mess , well we just keep tidying up in a never ending circle of dispair, we try all sorts of schedules and plans and tips and tricks to try to keep ourselves from exploding into a mass of fur and sinue, some of which work but most of which don't .
So let's start with the toys , I started with a massive bin bag and threw everything away which was broken , obviously this had to be done with the stealth like precision of the SAS team  just incase my 4year old wanted the doll with no head .

 
Next I decided to separate the toys with were noisy , branded or battery operated  and put to one side . 
Of what was left , I separated into groups and picked one of each , for instance , the farm , the Lego , the animals , the emergency vehicles , and displayed them neatly, then I watched .... 
I watched while they got excited about the toys , I watched while they played together for the first time with no arguments and I watched their imagination come alive . They built dens , they drew ,they wrote stories. They didn't ask for TV or tablets. They played and played.
At bedtime the stories became more animated as they got to really got engrossed in the two books we alternated between. 
After a week I rotated the groups from the extra toys in the garage and the same thing happened again . My kids were calmer happier and more focused.
A year later I still rotate and they're still excited , I donate any toys they don't levitate to and books they're not excited about . The noisy toys got donated and were never missed. 
Today I might have a snotty tissue in my coffee and  a  polo mint stuck to my bum but the toys will only take five minutes max to tidy up . 
I got most of my advice from Kim Payne on the simplicity parenting website he really changed our home for the better. 
simplicityparenting  .  

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28/07/2016

Cold coffee and snotty tissues


 The school holidays are upon us and along with the no rush, non shouty mornings that come with it so does all the mess. Tons of it . There's the obvious food mess, plates left out, drinks spilt, crisps dropped. There's the toy mess... So many toys, endless piles of  random toys stuck together in a heap which only makes sense to a four year old. The clothes, the shoes , the paper , the art, the crayons, the knitting etc etc . Then there's the un obvious mess, the surprises you find in the most extraordinary places ... The sweet wrapper in the candle holder, the half chewed sweet behind a cushion, the underpants in the paddling pool, the Lego in the shower and so forth and so on ...
So how do we tackle all this extraordinary mess , well we just keep tidying up in a never ending circle of dispair, we try all sorts of schedules and plans and tips and tricks to try to keep ourselves from exploding into a mass of fur and sinue, some of which work but most of which don't .
So let's start with the toys , I started with a massive bin bag and threw everything away which was broken , obviously this had to be done with the stealth like precision of the SAS team  just incase my 4year old wanted the doll with no head .

 
Next I decided to separate the toys with were noisy , branded or battery operated  and put to one side . 
Of what was left , I separated into groups and picked one of each , for instance , the farm , the Lego , the animals , the emergency vehicles , and displayed them neatly, then I watched .... 
I watched while they got excited about the toys , I watched while they played together for the first time with no arguments and I watched their imagination come alive . They built dens , they drew ,they wrote stories. They didn't ask for TV or tablets. They played and played.
At bedtime the stories became more animated as they got to really got engrossed in the two books we alternated between. 
After a week I rotated the groups from the extra toys in the garage and the same thing happened again . My kids were calmer happier and more focused.
A year later I still rotate and they're still excited , I donate any toys they don't levitate to and books they're not excited about . The noisy toys got donated and were never missed. 
Today I might have a snotty tissue in my coffee and  a  polo mint stuck to my bum but the toys will only take five minutes max to tidy up . 
I got most of my advice from Kim Payne on the simplicity parenting website he really changed our home for the better. 
simplicityparenting  .  

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