Bye Bye stuff.

   Have you ever just walked around your house and realized that you are just surrounded by things?
That is where I am at right now. I know that we have had a lot of one-sided conversations about my overflow of items. There is always a mountain of clothes of varying sizes throughout my house, and a bazillion dirty dishes that I am still amazed actually all have a place. But the problem is that lately I have found way too many things in my house that actually don't have a place because all the places are full.
   JT wants to learn to swim, and while we have been taking him to the pool every few days to work on it (he gets so busy playing he will only dedicate about 5-10 minutes a pool session to actually learning to swim, which is honestly fine with me because I have 2 other kids to keep my eyes on) I occasionally get the urge to tell him to go dive in the toy room and practice. It's kind of the best of both worlds- I don't have to watch him, he cant drown.. suffocate via stuffed animal avalanche perhaps, but no drowning, and he still gets the concept of pushing things out of his way in order to get to the other side.
  There have been more crying sessions than I would like to admit over the sheer amount of accumulated CRAP, as well as  few fights that go something like this:
   -UGHH THERE IS TOO MUCH CRAP IN HERE!
   - So throw some of it away.
   - Like WHAT? I USE all of this stuff, we just need a bigger house.
   - No you need to learn to not keep everything.
   - What are you trying to say? You think I am a hoarder? Oh NO! Those Hoarder Marathons are starting to rub off on me! I can hear their voices in my head. I agree with them.. My stuff is fine, if we just get rid of all of yours it would be great! I'm Doomed. I am just going to live in a mountain of items for the rest of my life.

  This is generally where Ian tells me I am ridiculous and walks away. But the scary part is some days I actually think that.. If Ian just didn't have so many clothes I would have this whole closet to myself.
   So it stops here. I wish I had thought of this sooner, but since I didn't I will start with where I am at.
I am attaching a slew of pictures of my house. The Great Thomas House Purging of 2014 has already begun, so pardon some of the mess and overflow of furniture, but welcome to my overstuffed home. Please keep me accountable to getting rid of things... and pardon the mess.. This is a Construction Zone, and my life is in a state of redevelopment. Out with the old, and in with the basic necessities.

Please meet my kitchen, home of 40 mugs for one coffee drinker, and too many things on the counter.

 Next up we have my laundry room, complete with last years Christmas decorations, and my downstairs closet, home of all the random things we don't know where to put. Oh and the dog food.

This happens to be the one area of my living room I really have a problem in. I try to keep it clutter free, but it just gathers all the things we need to put out of the kids reach and the things we don't want to lose.

Here we have JT, I think he will go in the keep pile. Although about 50% of the things you see behind him will not be joining him. Sorry toys, I would like to take back my life.

Here we have the upstairs. Porter's room contains so many clothes that I can't close the space saver bags. There's the too small bag that I have to go through, the too small bag of things I am keeping, the too big bag, the fits but is totally wrong season bag, and the laundry bag (and pile) of things that have never made it into the dresser for me to know if they fit or not.

 

And lastly we have the Master Bedroom. The most work has been done in this room recently. The real "Before" Picture was a lot scarier than this. I have already removed 2 bags of give away, a paper box of random knick knacks and a full bag of trash from this room, Oh and a desk. If you had been looking at this room 3 days ago you wouldn't know we had carpet because of the sheer amount of clothes.

 

So now that I have laid all of my dirty laundry all over this blog (literally if you look at the laundry room pictures) I am going to let you know my motive.

 I always say that I am getting rid of things, but I always chicken out. Here I know that I have readers who will ask me about it. And since any of you that happen to come by only see the downstairs, not you will know what my upstairs looks like, and why we don't venture up there. Keep me accountable ladies and gentlemen. I need the organization so that I can function. Otherwise this house turns into my black hole. I am meant for bigger and better and nicer things than what is in these pictures and I am tired of letting the  accumulation of material possessions hold back my plans in life, and suck away the precious minutes.

 

If I have not given you any updates in a week hound me. Seriously. text me. blog me. call me out on Facebook. Whatever you think I need.

 

Until then... I am off to put that Kuerig to use. Send Coffee. 

Trials of Baby 3

  There are certain things you expect about becoming a mom. The up all night, the snot, the diapers. By the time you are pregnant for your second go-round you think to your self- OK I have this. the hardest part is that now there are 2 of them.
   But that's so wrong. Its more that you are now a mom to 2 beautiful kids that are completely different. The way they sleep is different, when they eat is different. What they think is funny is different. So by the time number 3 rolls around you are pretty prepared to be a first time parent again. Learning the ins and outs of a new baby, of a new toddler, of a whole new human.
   Don't get me wrong, you are aware that the mechanics are still the same. You change a diaper the same (unless you are going boy to girl of course- Front to back people, front to back) You are going to start feeding solids around the same time, you are going to have to keep buying clothes etc. The advantage is you can kind of use the same equipment over and over again. That stuff is expensive.
   For me, they were all fairly easy babies. Ok that might be an understatement. Ellie was the only one that really gave me any sort of trouble right away. That kid (not as if you can tell from the looks of her now) refused to eat for 5 days. We were force feeding her by syringe every time she opened her mouth to cry. Then she just preferred Ian. As a stay at home mom full of hormones please try not taking that personally. . .( cue the "My baby hates me" fits and tears.) By day 5 we were back in the hospital for her overnight stay. It was terrible, but once we got on the right track she was good to go.
   My babies sleep through the night fast. By 2 months they are on a schedule of what time they wake up at night and by 6 months at the longest ( ELLIE!) they are sleeping through the night for about 11-12 hours. Not much for crying, unless something is wrong. But man-o-man, once the walking starts we are talking majorly different children.
   JT was my clingy baby. Just wanted to cuddle, wanted to climb the DVD shelf and tear them all down. Wanted to pull all the toys out and take a nap on them. Ellie was my into everything baby. Bathroom sinks, she cleared out the cabinets, played in the dog water, dipped my kitchen towels in the dog water, she loved to pull out all my cleaning supplies and hose down my house. Porter is my thrower. He likes to climb the stairs too, and occasionally dog water swim, but, throwing is his specialty.
   For instance, he likes to throw the remote off the couch so that he can get the batteries out. He likes to throw toys to hear them clank together. He likes to throw food off his tray for the dogs to eat, He likes to throw things at us because our startled reactions amuse him, but my FAVORITE thing he likes to do, is throw things in the toilet.
   Nothing brightens my day like having to stick my hand down in a toilet bowl full of poop because Ellie never flushes and Porter thinks that's where all things electronic should go. If it has batteries and the bathroom door is open you are in trouble.
   Today I lucked out and it was JT who had left the bathroom door open, but the fun ball toy that you hold a button down while it shakes your whole body; yeah that doesn't work any more. SO far the toilet has claimed a few similar toys and nothing important. Once there was an action figure hugging a turd. That was an especially unfortunate day, but some gloves, a few gags and smuggling the poop hugging toy in the trash and we were good to go. Porter just laughed.
  At this point I have let go of getting mad about it and chalked it up to a sort of Natural Selection, or Survival of the Fittest: Toy Edition. I mean I am always complaining that we have too much junk, why not let the kids decide what they don't need anymore, without any rationalization from me.

   Maybe next I will introduce him to his fathers clothes, and we can finally get some color introduced.