Kids are messy

As a parent, you tend to resign yourself to having a bit of a mess in your house. Okay, maybe more than a bit. From toys to and games scattered throughout the house to snacks and sippy cups being left in the most unusual places – kids are messy.

The secret to maintaining your sanity and not becoming everyone’s maid is to pick your battles. I’ve given up trying to enforce a tidy bedroom. Both my kids play for an hour or so after we put them to bed. They know they need to stay in their room, but I encourage them to play quietly and then put themselves to bed when they’re tired.  Often when I go in to tuck them in, they’ve dragged all their toys out and fallen asleep with them grasped in their embrace.

The front hallway on the other hand is a place where I can’t stand a mess. Before kids, a coat rack and mat for shoes sufficed, but eventually we added a bench to store winter hats and mittens. Then an extra mat was added to accommodate the extra shoes. The latest addition was another coat rack. Normally when we got home, the kids would take their shoes off and put them on the mat, but since they couldn’t reach the coat rack, they would end up dumping them on the bench or the floor, which drove me crazy. So I decided to add the extra coat rack and mount it to the wall kid height! It took some encouragement and some reminding, but now when we get home, coats magically get hung! One small step for mommy, one giant leap for keeping the house tidy!