Young Oldie: Decluttering Collateral Benefits

Because if you can have collateral damage, you should be able to have collateral benefits.

For instance:

Today I moved the Pack n' Play to the master bedroom, because Littleman is so good at rolling that leaving him in the center of the king-size bed while I take a shower is no longer viable. With the Pack n' Play gone, there was room to scoot over the big lambie skin and the kid furniture. Voila!

A reading nook. With a lower shelf for their current books, no less.

And a basket for the National Geographic for Kids magazines that their great-grandma sends them.

And a big enough space for Littleman to feel like he's playing too. It's hard being the smallest, least mobile, and most apt to eat fuzz when you really want to be with your brother and sister.

They really, really like their new area. I really, really like not tripping over the lambie skin in the middle of the floor.

It was good for playing blocks, as well as reading.

We decluttered the toys today, which was how all this started. In the process we put all the wooden blocks together. Voila, they were a set again, and suddenly a fun toy.

So we played wooden blocks all afternoon, and did not even notice the big box of old Happy Meal prizes, beat-up dollar store lizards, random stuffed animals that I don't even remember getting, and so forth that Mama put in the garage. After it sneakily stays in the garage and is not missed, one of these weekends the Husband and I will take it to the pathetically grateful thrift store down the road from Walmart and donate them. (I mean pathetically grateful.)

Littleman is sort-of crawling. Scootching, really, but gets up on his elbows and knees in tandem quite a bit, actually. Seems like my other kids took longer, but they weren't quite as frantic to keep up as he is.

"CHEESE!"

Littleman, trying desperately to see around his sister.

See what I mean about the almost-crawling?

Please, guys? Please? Can I play too? Please? I know I can't grasp anything with my hand yet, but I could at least gnaw on it a bit if you put it near my mouth.

I didn't think to take a before shot of the toy area in the boys' room but this is the after. Trust me, it's much better.

Another odd toy win: sponges. One day I let Miss Boo wipe down her own spot at the table and she became addicted; so I bought the largest, cheapest sponge at the grocery store the other day and cut it into three sections. Luckily it came in a two pack, pink and blue, so Miss Boo has pink and Bud has blue. They wipe their spots on the table enthusiastically after each meal. We're working on actually doing a *good* job, though.

The Pack n' Play in its new home, including the books that I've been reading Littleman. You sort of forget how young they like to listen to books, but when he began being fascinated with the older kids' books I got out some of the baby ones.

Third kid and that Baby Animals book that I bought for a quarter at the thrift store is still going strong! My cloth diapers, however, are actually starting to show quite a bit of wear. I'm thinking I need to order another dozen. Not bad, really, for $70--two and a half kid's worth.