The Kids Room

Today, I once again tried to tackle the very daunting task of setting up the kids room. Forget painting it, forget decorating it...I just wanted to be able to walk through it!

You see, the kids have more toys than we have space. Way more. During the last few months, I have tried to find a suitable solution, but Emerald's room remained more storage space than anything else.

Not any more!

I set Emerald's bed up and ready for sleep--we still need to buy a new mattress for her, but until then, I put a thick plushy mattress cover on it. She adores her new pink sheets, though now she is telling me she wants to paint her room yellow...not so certain about that.

In the corner, we have a few toys for the kids to play with, and a table on which to play, but the rest of them have been moved out so that this is more of a "sleep" zone. Also, so they can't make an unmanageable mess as I bring out just one toy organizer a day.

There were a lot of broken toys, stashed food, and torn up books that made it into the trash; and a big box of stuffed animals that are going to goodwill soon, but we still had a guest bed full of stufties left. I am thinking about getting one of those stuffed animal hammocks that hang in the corner of rooms, but I really hate how those look.

With the toy organizers we recently got, we have had trouble with the kids just knocking over and emptying all over the room, so those actually got moved into the guest room. The way I am hoping to play it:

Each day, I will bring out one of the organizers, and they are allowed to take out the toys and play with them from those. Afterwards, they help me pick them back up and put them away, and I send the organizer back to the room. They still have the few toys and tons of books besides those, but I am hoping this will help contain the mess every day; plus, if they only see certain toys every other day, it will keep our supply interesting longer.

There are actually a total of three organizers--one is Gabriel's, one is Emerald's, and one is full of toys for the new baby when they get here. New baby is actually really lucky--I didn't save any clothes from when my other kids were infants, but I apparently saved all the toys, and we have tons of great, fun stuff for them.

So, wish me luck! The kids are going to sleep in their room tonight, with the moon night light and the star projector overhead, and maybe actually like being away from me =)

--Andie