One of the big things we are doing an awful job around here with is putting things away. Currently there are about 100 plastic building blocks on the floor in the living room, a dozen pencils, heaps of books, a naked DVD, and assorted socks.
Ugh.
I think there are a few solutions to this constant problem.
First, there will be fewer toys. We have a garage and many of these toys are going out there in a weekly or biweekly rotation. They almost all have containers they belong in already so this should go smoothly enough.
Second, there will be a reward if all the toys are picked up at the end of the night. The star chart to earn a reward has been very successful in the past and I'm never quite sure why we quit doing it (oh, it's laziness and cheapness... hmm... at least one of those I can fix).
Third, the plastic building blocks must go and only be used occasionally and picked up immediately after use (same for those log house things with the pointy stabbing roofs). There will be no mulit-day building projects unless they are on a table.
Most importantly, there must be buy-in from everyone that the toys need to go away every time we are done using them. The giant pyramid sculpture was not made by the 4 year old, so if you play with the toys, you must put them away. Hint hint.
The cat will also need to have hir own toys, because most of the killer small toy pieces scattered around the house ended up distributed by insane cat antics. Maybe some nice soft sparkle balls...
We are starting to get to this point - time to pull out the boxes and rotate toys in and out for sure. I can't stand to have them littered all across the room!
ReplyDeleteARGH! The toys! I read about these other toddlers that "love to put things away" and all I can think is "LIES!" I was really hoping that HGB would pick up BJB's "Must. Clean. Everything." gene, but he seems to have inherited my propensity to not give a f*ck. That is, until I started stepping on blocks and that damn animal sounds puzzle came into my life.
ReplyDeleteWhen you come up with the perfect system for The Kid, please send it my way! I will pay you dollars.