Re-Organizing Mom

After being featured on Zoey’s blog, Good Goog, I decided it was time to take a little of my own advice.  One piece of advice to her readers was to find a natural home for your belongings.  (ex: If you have a place where you always find yourself opening your mail, well then create a station there.  I tend to bring mine to the kitchen and open it over the garbage.  HAHA, with most paper mail, you’ll find that the trash can is its best home )

I have a confession, I have a problem with baby toys.  While I’m sure most of you can sympathize, it was driving me mad.  We have a playroom, but it was almost never used.  It happened to be a room that’s supposed to be a dining room.  It’s between the front living room, and the kitchen.  It’s a room I have to walk through many many times a day.  We had gutted a built in hutch and made it into a built in shelving unit.  This was for toys!  I bought bins and baskets for sorting said toys.  I put bigger ones on the lower shelves so the babe could reach and play.  Her mp3 docking station is in there so we can turn on the music and watch her groove out.  There’s a small TV hooked to our home server if we should want to share cartoons with her (she doesn’t care a hoot about shows, which is OK by me, but weird..no?)  I even have space for crafting supplies for when she’s old enough to particiapate!

The problem was, we didn’t use it.  There was still a dining table in the room that was NEVER used for meals.  It had become a landing spot for mail (when I was too lazy to bring it the extra 10 feet to the kitchen?)  We also used it to keep random junk up off the floor away from Alexa.  So really, I had a big place for trash!  GAH

There was also very little seating in the room.  I had moved my rocker down from the nursery and put it next to her little book shelf, but that was it.  A rocker and an ottoman.  Not very conducive to hanging out and playing.  Weird thing, we had too much seating in the living room.  There was a HUGE sectional (the U-shaped kind) that fit well in the room, but felt overwhelming since it took up a good portion of the space.  Also, since all the good seating was in there, her toys almost always wandered in to join in on the fun

You see my problem now?  We have this dedicated space for all of the babe’s toy lovin’ fun, but all her stuff was in…what should be…a “grown-up” type space.  While I’m not a fan of the “forbidden” room, I would still prefer that the first room you walk into when you enter the house not be filled with baby blocks, stuffed animals, and other odds and ends.  I feel better when things are nice and tidy, and this arrangement was NOT making me feel calm!

This weekend, while the boy was away with the babe, I decided to get down to business.  I wanted ALL of the toys back in the playroom!  I wanted my living room to be back in order (btw, we were having new windows installed, and hated the idea of the couch covering ALL of the pretty new glass).  I had about 2 hours to get it all done.  I broke apart the couch, and now the love seat and chaise lounge are taking up an empty corner of the once bare playroom.  The main part of the couch (the 3 seater side) stayed put.  The rocker and ottoman is in the living room corner.  All the toys have a space.  My useless dinging table will be either sold on Craigslist or left out for the local garbage pickers

It’s been 3 full days now, and we’ve used the playroom all day every day!  We may put the big TV back in here so Peter and I can stay in here at night and watch our shows after Alexa goes to bed, hmmmm something to think about.  I’m just so thrilled that the toys have a real home

There are a few things that I’ve done since my baby was born to help keep things orderly, to make my mommy-ing easier, and really…to let me be as lazy as possible in some respects. A good system to create LESS work for you…not more. If it creates more work, you’re less likely to use it…defeating the purpose, and tacking on more guilt.

What I’ve done throughout the house is set up zones, hot-spots, activity centers…whatever you want to call them. I’m sure I’ll miss a few, but here’s a list so you get the idea.

• Bathing – Since our bathroom is crazy small, we keep all of the baby’s bath related items in her closet. The tub sits on the shelf when it’s not in use. The bottles of shampoo, conditioner, etc are in the cubies of an unused shoe organizer. The towels and cloths are in the same organizer. When she used to get sponge baths in the first weeks we kept all of that stuff in the top drawer of her changing table/dresser, but once she moved on to the tub this worked best. Everything is easily accessible and easy to put away when done!
• Pumping – When we were still dealing with the NICU I pumped ALLLL the time. I had a hospital grade rental pump that took up a lot of room. We moved the “rocker” into our bedroom and put a plastic drawer unit next to it. I kept all my supplements, pads, creams in one drawer, extra pump parts in another, and other odds and ends in the last. This gave me a place to keep the remote, food, drink so I could get comfy and be entertained during those 45 minute sessions…ugggh!
• Breastfeeding – In the beginning I nursed in our bedroom. It was still cold out, so it was easier to snuggle up in the bedroom, so I basically switched out the pumping supplies for the bf’ing supplies (a lot of the same). Now we nurse wherever, but in the beginning it was essential to have all my stuff at an arms reach!
• Diaper changing – There are a few of these throughout the house. The main one being in the living room. We cloth diaper and they take up a lot of room, so we turned the TV table into a diaper changing dresser. There we house, within 2 drawers, all the cloth diapers and a few disposables, creams, wipes, changing pad. That way I don’t have to climb the stairs when, honestly, we spend most of our time on the living room floor.
• Feeding – Now that the baby is on solids we’ve started to dedicate portions of the kitchen cabinets to her food and supplies. There’s one side of an upper cabinet that holds all her bottles and food related items. We also use this cabinet to contain all of her medications and tooth brushing needs (much easier to remember to do it right after her last meal/bottle). I do still make some of her food purees, so some stuff is in the fridge/freezer, but keeping the bulk of her meal supplies together makes preparing meals much easier when you’ve slept like shit the night before
• Play area – our dining room is a very underused waste of a space really, so we’ve dedicated half of it to use as a playroom. There’s a pretty rug on the floor for her to crawl on, the rocker has been moved down there now to be used for reading time, a sling bookcase was purchased to hold all age appropriate books so she can reach them and chow down HA. Also, we gutted an old built-in china cabinet and added shelving to house toy bins, craft supplies, and a TV (power and cable were ran so no extension cords have to be strung through the room). I hope to have some signs made up to attach to the bins and other storage containers so the baby can help put things away…when she’s no longer a baby

As you can see…over the past year our needs have changed, and so have my systems. The thing that has stayed the same is that I try to keep it as simple as possible. Keeping like with like makes doing the task faster and easier. Being able to find what you need…when you need it…is the most basic and important thing when it comes to being “organized”!