Staying Organized

My kids have reached an age where everything is fun to play with - even things that aren't toys.  They love to open drawers and dump things out of them.  I have drawers and drawers and drawers filled with cloth napkins (I have a "thing" against paper napkins - don't ask me why, but I hate them, so I have dozens, maybe hundreds, of cloth napkins), and one of Ellie's favorite past times is opening the drawers and flinging the napkins (and tablecloths, for that matter) all over the living room. 

They dump their blocks, books, toys, shoes, clothes, food, diapers, everything all over the place.  There is nothing more fun and exciting than taking something that was neatly piled and flinging it across the room and scattering it wildly about.  Especially if Mommy is there to clean it up so they can scatter it about right behind her. 

So imagine my delight when my Programming Co-chair for our Parents of Multiples Club suggested a few months ago that we have a program on Staying Organized with Multiples.  Of Course!  Brilliant!  Our speaker tonight was herself a mother of twin girls, and a Professional Organizer.  She had a lot of great suggestions for organizing both your physical space and your time.  I was delighted to discover that many of the things she suggests are things that I already implement in my daily life.  My downfall, simply, is consistency.  I get caught up with too many things on my to-do list and don't always stay consistent with my ability to always do the things she suggests.  I also, simply, get overwhelmed with the clutter in my house.  Since having kids the sheer amount of *stuff* in my house has increased exponentially. 

Today, the J-man's teacher asked if I'd seen something she'd sent home a few weeks ago.  I hadn't, as J tends to take things out of his backpack before I can get to it.  I came home from tonight's meeting on Staying Organized inspired to sort through some junk in order to find that item.  And sort through the junk, I did!  Why, I was a complete overachiever!  I cleaned off the dining room table, cleaned the sunroom, threw out a dozen magazines that I haven't gotten around to reading and I'll probably never get around to reading, sorted through all the school stuff that's come home in J's backpack that I hadn't gotten a chance to look at, put a bunch of baby clothes away (someone had given us a box of clothes for the girls that had been sitting in our sunroom waiting for me to get to), cleared off two shelves on a bookshelf so that I could use it for easy accessibility for toddler toys instead of my books, cleaned out a cabinet full of old materials from a banquet I'd worked on a couple years ago, put away a couple boxes of toys I'd weeded through a couple weeks ago, but hadn't actually put away yet, cleaned up the living room, cleaned off the dining room table, cleaned up J's bedroom floor, found three missing pacifiers, filed away some papers, and threw out a bunch of junk.  Oh, and I got J's backpack ready for school for tomorrow.   Go me.  (Oh, and I *did* find the thing J's teacher asked me about... eventually)

I.  Was.  Productive.

Seriously!

Seth came home in the midst of this and said, "So, I guess you decided to find out where we had some extra space laying around?" and I said, "I bet you'll never guess what tonight's program was on?"

And you know?  There's more to do (there's always more to do, isn't there?), but it's a great start, and now at least I know one thing is down. 

At least until Ellie pulls all the napkins out of the drawers again...

Comments

[pam]

ooh! great idea for our moms of triplets group!

[Jody]

But wait -- what were the recommendations?!

I'm always looking for suggestions on this one....