Okay - to start. Wo Olympics!! Ben and I are loving it over here! And I'm staying up way too late every night because of it. As with Amanda, we were screaming at our television last night when the men's relay team won!! Wasn't that amazing?! The swimming is by far my favorite to watch - probably because it's easy to understand.. the fastest wins!! The gymnastics is fun too, but I wish I understood the scoring a little better. Tonight we're looking forward to more swimming (hooray Michael Phelps!!), men's gymnastics, and beach volleyball. Woohoo! Go USA!! OH, and a shout out to China for the most awesome Opening Ceremonies EVER!! Incredible!! :)So, Emma has more or less stopped taking her afternoon nap (she'll maybe still fall asleep 1 or 2 times each week). Well, to keep my sanity, I've done what many other moms have suggested and instilled Quiet Time into our routine. Becca still naps in the afternoon, of course (but no longer in the morning, which is actually kind of nice, as it opens up our day a little better). Emma doesn't have to sleep during Quiet Time, but she has to spend one hour (from 1pm-2) in her room. She can play with her toys or look at books, or whatever - as long as she's relatively quiet about it. I shut her door either way, so I don't hear much of what she's up to in there. Well, as a result, Emma's room is getting TRASHED! So, first is a picture of Emma's room when it is clean:
And second, a picture of her room after quiet time:
AHHHH!! I get to the point where I don't even know where to begin with cleaning it up. First of all, I feel like Emma has too much stuff in her room. I really need to get on a rotating system with her toys. And she has so much little stuff - dress up, makeup stuff, kitchen stuff, coloring stuff, etc, etc. What to do... any suggestions? Should I just throw half of it away? I guess, I feel like she has so much going on in her room that Emma doesn't even know where to begin herself, in helping me clean it. What a chore!
We took a little break from Olympic watching and spent Saturday morning mini golfing. Haven't done that in forever! It was fun - the place was a little ghetto - I was just trying to find an indoor mini golf place that wasn't too far away - but the kids really loved it. They gave Becca a little plastic putter and she devotedly carried that and her little green ball around. She decided that the key to mini golfing was to collect and return as many balls to their owners. So, it kind of turned into a race to get your ball into the hole before Becca grabbed it and handed it to you. She's so funny.
Last year, I remember thinking that the summer just never ended. It was nearing the end of September and we were still having temps in the 100's. It will be interesting to see how it goes this year. The high temps are at least nice for swimming, so we will continue to do so as long as possible! Below is Emma with some of her friends at Taya's pool. They kept holding hands and jumping off the side of the pool like this. 
It looks like you guys are having a fun summer despite the heat! =) I can totally relate to the messy room thing! It's like they can't really get into their "zone" of pretending until they have ALL their toys out! I've gone through all their toys a few times and gotten rid of the annoying little stuff and other things that they don't really need or play with. I LOVE those clear drawers that stack - they make clean up so much easier because then everything has a place. =)
ReplyDeleteI enjoy badminton, the shuttlecock moves so fast you can hardly see it zip to and fro. It a sport that I played in the backyard along with Jarts, Horseshoes and Bocce ball, hey these should be Olympic sports too!
ReplyDeleteThe weirdest sport has to be team handball, it is kind of the opposite of soccer in that you can ONLY use your hands to throw the ball into the goal. When I first saw it on the tube, I thought. "is Dodgeball now an Olympic sport?"
My favorite Olympic sport is Curling. The next opportunity comes in 2010 at Vancouver, Canada.
I look forward to rooting on the team skips and the sweepers as they go end after end, from hog line to hog line, gliding the shot rocks deftly to there targets!
a lot of blabbers about toys... first off i love toys! Yay! they do so much for kids, and they do so much for mother's sanity. but if not well organized they may cause everyone to go crazy. I think I have found some what of a solution, I just put it in place yesterday, so I don't know if it will work. I went and spent good money on rubbermaid boxes... of all sizes... and I labeled them. Little people. . . music. . . blocks... etc... and then all fisher price little people stuff goes in the little people box (this is our biggest box...it has to have room for the farm, the bus, the house, and soon the circus plus all of the people) anyhow, they can't get out one box, until the other box is put away... and even if they cheat and pull out more then one box, i can just put all the boxes around the room and i know exactly where things go even the little stuff... i don't even have to move, i can sit in the middle of the room and play hoops with all the toys as I through them in the boxes. Also behavior wise, it is very wise to rotate toys. kids tend not to play with toys, but just make messes if they have too many toys. if you rotate them it is like getting new toys every couple of weeks, leave those ones out until they seam old, and then rotate out something new in and those out.... Or... you could just start throwing away toys that aren't put away... like you say she really probably has too many toys (all kids do) it would only take a couple of times before she realizes that if she doesn't take care of them they are gone. . . and in the process you have gotten rid of some of them.
ReplyDeleteWhen you kids were little, I rotated the toys from one week to the next. I also tried to not own many small junkie items. The plastic bin idea is a good one. For younger children that can't read, tape a picture of what goes in the bin onto the front of it. Always have them clean up before they go to bed each night.
ReplyDeleteIt's not mean to teach you're kids that they can't pull everything out at once either.
I soooo feel your pain about the messy kids room! Olivia just has so much STUFF I feel like she doesn't play with half of it and then people keep piling it on more at b-days and Christmas and it's driving me NUTS! I finally had all grans and gramps (both sides) go in on one big present with Cameron and I this year for her b-day (a playhouse) and that was nice to not add to the clutter. And every once in awhile when she's gone the "cleaning fairy" sneaks into her room and trashes or donates stuff that she hasn't played with in forever. I know it's sneaky - but not once has she noticed that a garbage bag or two of stuff disappearing from her room.
ReplyDeleteHey Susan! Ha ha...I enjoyed reading this. As far as the messy room goes...this is what I have to look forward to, huh? Anyway, glad I found your blog. How is YW's going? Are you still in with the beehives?
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