yesterday i hesitated for a moment before sharing the story about scolding the bean for coughing. clearly it wasn’t a high point in my parenting but also it wasn’t the first time i have done something shameful terrible human like that. i read a fair number of blogs pretty regularly and i have to confess that one of my main complaints about some of my favorite blogs is how i only hear about the things they are doing right. some day i would love to see a post pop up on my google reader where they disclosed the moment where their waldorf, gentle discipline, attachment parenting perfect parent self disappeared and they yelled at their child for coughing. you know? not that i think i present myself on here as perfect at all. but, it was that thought that made me just go ahead and share the moment with you all. and the support that came through in the comments was really nice so i wanted to say thank you.
last night he was up coughing again and again i was tired and not pleased but i kept myself calm and we made it through the hour and half without either of us crying. phew! i think that was due in part to feeling less alone.
some of the ikea bins
over the past several months i have been thinking more and more about our toys and play room. i have already culled through a few times and eliminated some of the obvious stuff (three trash bags full of stuff that went to donation). yet i still feel like there is way too much stuff in our toy life and toy area. i want it to be easier for bean to access what he wants, i want to feel better about the clean up system, i want to only have a minimal amount of stuff out, i want to make all of our lives more simple and easier.
in the last week i read two posts that reinvigorated me to do even more culling and work on the playroom situation. carrie over at the parenting passageway wrote about the importance of “creating your space” in her post on setting up your family for homeschooling success. we are not homeschooling but i do so love carrie’s blog and the way she runs her home often speaks to me. similarly there was a nice post at bluebirdbaby on a waldorf friendly home. we are not a waldorf home but i do like a fair amount of the waldorf idea’s i have read about or been exposed to. i really do think there is a lot to be said for the minimal, natural toys theory.
another view
i am not about to toss anything we have that is not hand carved. i am just more of a pick and chose kind of gal so i need to take what works for me without feeling like i have to totally subscribe to all things waldorf. i do value our more natural toys though. i think having a play room that was less crowded with dissimilar and cheaply made toys and was more organized around themed area’s and toys that stand the test of time would serve us well. last night as i was laying in bed trying to think of ways to make my days with the kids flow more easily, i thought of the posts i had read and wondered if putting some energy into our toy room situation might be a good place to start. i came up with a mental list of “areas” we could have that felt good to me and also took account of the bean’s main interests.
kitchen/play house/dress up
music/art
cars/trains/vehicles
building
a few other things that they kids enjoy and i do not want to get rid of yet:
some stuffed animals
balls
this afternoon my mothers helper is coming and maybe i can get to work on packing up some of the less popular play things that also do not fit into my “areas.” i will just store them in a bin so they can be rotated back into our playing life as we see fit.
one last look
i’d like to make it so that each of the bins we have (we have some ikea storage units with open bins) holds certain things. i can label the bins so it is easy for the bean to understand and also for flash and i to put things away where they belong. hopefully that will make it that much easier for cleaning up to be a given instead of a struggle. i can’t really blame him – i find the whole room totally insane as well. who knows where anything in it should go?! it is a total mishamash.
what about you readers. do you have play room systems? got any tips to help me on my play room journey? do’s and don’ts? pictures of what is working for you? (or if you want to just come do my playroom for me i am totally open to that!)
peace out yo
woowoo mama
Your playroom is wonderful!!
And as far as the other, we are all human…The best part about parenting is you often get to “re-do” the same situation and sometimes do it better.
Be easy with yourself!
Blessings,
carrie – thank you for coming over to my blog. i feel like a celebrity stopped by (really!). and thank you also for the reminder that even the mama’s i look up to are not perfect all the time
enjoying your blog, and envious over your play room!
i realized in reading this that i rarely post my terrible mom moments…days…weeks…because i’m too busy surviving..beating myself up…etc. it’s not that some of us don’t want to post that stuff. it’s just that we’re too stuck to do so!
amy – thank you for coming to my blog! (although i am not sure where the play room envy comes from – isn’t it funny how we constantly want to improve on what we have?)
i encourage you to go ahead and blog the not so pretty moments. i have found it to be incredibly helpful. going to check out your blog now
ok, this is my arena, if anything. i am the queen of all things organized.
i love creating spaces that have harmony and functionality. i am heading off to school tonight, but will think on this one and try to send you some links or pics. over the years of teaching, pieces of the montessori philosophy spoke to me. some of it didn’t, but there are gems within in it, especially in creating an environment. the idea is to create a space at their level – one the bean can access – so he can find what he is looking for and put it back again. one really silly example is the colored pencil holders you will find at montessorioutlet.com i LOVE these. the colors and wood just make me so happy. there are also some neat sensorial and practical life toys/materials you might like on some of these sites. just a few thoughts. it all depends on what kind of space you want. one idea..ask bean to help you. ask him where he thinks things should go. i betcha he’ll be incredibly insightful.
k, more later chica,
jenny
i really like the ikea bins, and everything in that picture! dh has been talking about building bins for the little guy’s room, and i think i’ll have to take him up on it soon.
and…i do indeed blog about the difficult, not so pretty moments of parenting. just did so today. (it just took me 3 weeks in this case!)
Well, we don’t have a play room, and we all share a bedroom, but that’s because we live in the city in pretty tight digs. This means that we need to be even more organized, because there’s not a lot of space. I say “need to be more organized,” but unfortunately we’re not! The only thing we’ve tried to do is keep toys into a specific amount of space: 3 Ikea bins, and one Ikea toy box (yes, we’re Ikea shoppers here, too!). When the stuff overflows, then we know it’s time for a trip to the consignment shop. I’ve tried to arrange the bins by variety rather than sameness (ie, some trucks in each, some dolls & animals in each), and then rotate out one bin at a time. I need to look more into Waldorf ideas. I like the idea of a Nature Table. I also really want to organize our new space — since we moved, it just still is so chaotic and therefore unappealing to me. I want it to feel serene and inviting, and that means getting rid of a lot and organizing the rest.
I’m always afraid to publish bad-parenting stories (of which I, sadly, have legion) for fear of losing credibility. I will try to be braver in the future! Thanks for starting it out. There’s always such a divide between my philosophy of parenting and my practice, and I want to promote the ideals, not advocate my lackluster performance, you know? But being real is important, too.
i am all for promoting ideals but i think that the tendency to hide our worst moments only makes them that much harder for each other. i mean, if i know that all the ap mama’s mess up sometimes it feels easier to manage my own less then ideal moments. for me at least…maybe this is becoming a whole other post…
Lauren ~ I think that being real on your blog encourages us to embrace both the ideals and realities of attachment parenting!
Um, yeah, no problem for me… I feel like I am very open with my not-so-great moments, but even so, I’ve met people who still have this idea that I am always “peaceful.”
I’m all, “Didn’t you read the one where I yelled about cheese? Didn’t you read the one where I made my four-year-old cry in the middle of the night? Didn’t you read the one where I talk about how I’ve tried so long to deny my anger but I don’t want to carry that stone any more? Didn’t you read the one… ” you get the idea.
I thought I had you in my reader but I didn’t. I just spent an hour catching up on your last month of posts and I love it! I have about five posts I want to comment on.
In regard to playrooms… our kitchen takes up the width of our house at the back, and really only half of it is the kitchen (cabinets, appliances, etc.). The other half used to be my office, and then it was the dining room for a while, and now it is the playroom. We have books, puzzles, games, crafts, and art supplies in there. The “toys” used to be in the living room, but now they are upstairs in the kids’ room. (My youngest is now three so they can play up there more on their own, at least for a little while. Also, my office is upstairs, too, so they play while I write.)
I find I have to constantly pare down on what we have, but we’ve hit a sweet spot right now. We’ve got two little reading chairs, a rug, bookshelves and other storage (those same IKEA shelves, but taller and skinnier), and a small table with two chairs. The kids are spending a lot of time in the playroom The rug totally created a “destination” to laze about or do puzzles, et al.
I think your playroom looks sweet and cozy!
I have tons of the IKEA/Trofast line and have come up with a great way to organize them. I have one 3.5 year old son, but we have tons of little people over for play dates. I have the white Trofast line and we use a combination of the shelves (to house the large playsets, i.e. Imaginext) and then I use the bins. The bins are the smaller white (for games and small toys), one large white bin for action figures and the rest are in the medium sized red bins. I initially labeled them with my DYMO labeler, but realized (after 6 months) that my little one could not read and therefore was unable to successfully put his toys in their proper homes. What is a uber-organized Mommy to do? Well I made new labels on my computer using 4 x 6 cards (each label has a picture of the actual toy and the words…pictures easily obtained via google). I laminated each card (the labels for the small white bins were 2 x 3) and then placed velcro circles on them to secure them to the bins. Since then we have lived in complete organized bliss….not to say a stray astronaut does not make his way into the jungle themed bin, but we have at least an 85% accuracy rate (prior to the pictured labels Dad never even attempted out of fear).