the Big Mess!

Some days I love being a mom to all my children (hey that is my favorite soap opera too)! But I have to say that keeping up with all their toys is never one of my favorite activities.

Today after I had been working on catching up on laundry for a few hours and thinking about tackling matching socks..... Melea and Colin cam in from playing outside with Adrian to check on Miranda and Jordan. They were playing in the "baby" room.

This is a toy area... about an 7'x9' closet that I put / filled with all "baby safe / non choking toys and decorated the shelves with all the stuffed animals the kids have as well as all the old / out of batteries talking/singing/dancing Elmo's we have ..... and that is a lot! But is is fun and safe and Miranda and Jordan can crawl and play and do stuff and it is somewhat like a big playpen with a lot of toys....mostly out of reach... but there to be exchanged and moved and to encourage walking and fun!

Well to my chagrin after cleaning and picking up all three the toy room yesterday.... the baby room suddenly looked like there had been a 10.0 earthquake that hit it. I wanted to scream!!!!!!

Colin, Melea, Adrian and Daddy had been playing outside on the rainbow.... boy did they need to waste some energy running around (though apparently it was no where near enough) Eric had come in to go to the restroom and I had decided to change Miss Stinky pants..... so Jordan was alone in the toy room..... next thing I hear is lots of giggling and laughing and Elmo's talking & singing & making unbelievable sounds!

Melea decided to climb up and knock down all of the stuffed animals, then Colin helped her by dumping all the bins out.... (note the photo is from earlier this year when it was warm and the room was not completely decimated!) . In less than the time it took me to change Miranda's diaper, they came in saw that Jordan only had one toy and decided to "help him" pick another .....another from about a thousand! URGH!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess I can at least say that the did wait till after our guests left...so they can still think I am an overly compulsive neat freak. But is is so infuriating because Eric and I had just cleaned it all up and gotten all the toys back into the correct bins and made sure all the pieces were there for each toy.

Each and every day I am utterly amazed at the amount of damage my six wonderful angelic children can inflict on our toy area in a matter of minutes. I am the queen of organization and I swear that half the sterilite containers produced are in my house..... but I just get so surprised at the simple joy that all my kids get from dumping those containers out!

All of them love it.... Adrian will dump her little dolls furniture everywhere!, Colin and the train parts, and Melea.... Melea just loves to dump it all, throw it all, just make a huge mess.

Today it was so deep with stuffed animals it took me a few minutes to realize which moving pile was Jordan and which was Colin!

I asked her... did she want to help clean it up or sit in the "thinking chair".... well she looked a the floor, looked at me... and hopped down from the bookshelf and kicked about a dozen animals out of her way and walked upstairs to the thinking chair! I don't think I will be asking her that question again!

Colin helped me pick up some of the items, before he decided to go outside and play again and I just sat on the floor and was reminded of a story Sister Virgina told us in 7th grade...about visiting a former student who had a messy house and how she knew all the children there were loved so much....cause mom didn't have time to keep cleaning up after them..... I am sure if she could see my toy room right now Sister would know I really love my children a lot today!

So maybe Melea is trying to tell me something..... what ever the case... I went upstairs after clearing the floor of the big animals and making a safe spot for Miranda and Jordan .

I think I learned a bigger lesson than her anyways. I am never asking that question again!

When I got upstairs. Melea smiled and had a big hug for me, then she asked for "toooooo puprles" and I gave her two Hershey's kisses and she came down and helped me for about three minutes before asking to go outside and play!

Maybe I am a horrible mom or may be a great mom.... not really sure, cause I gave her candy and then let her off the hook.... but she actually verbally asked to play outside and she never would have helped me put silly parts Elmo back in the right box and "anal retentivel" mommy has to have the blocks in the block box, and the roll-arounds in that box, and the pop onz in the barrel, etc, etc, etc ........