Cleaning, tots, update
Fluwatch: Noah threw up three times, but seems to be on the mend. We’ll see how the day goes. I’m still waiting to come down with it.
Jody thanks for talking me down. :) It brought up a lot about cleaning and Noah and the house, and so here’s the ramble.
I have such strong reactions when I read on parenting boards about how (young; under 4) kids have to clean up or else they will be wastrels for life. I just pretty much disagree. It’s not that I don’t think they should participate. It’s that I think the participation should come in the form of a firm invitation: “hey, time to clean up - can you find all the dinosaurs?” and that if the child digs his or her heels in that day, it should generally be let go.
I recognize that part of this is the luxury of having a solitary, generally sunny child. Noah is the sort who occasionally remarks “When I’m 9, I will get to clean the cat litter, right mummy?” Right now, whatever we do, he wants to do, overall. This does not mean he wants to tidy up at 5:15 on Thursday, but his overall arc is participatory.
The other disclaimer here of course is that he’s at Montessori and they are doing a lot of training for us. Two months in, Noah started clearing his own plate. So now he does. That was easy.
The problem is, though, that we are starting to develop some issues around the whole thing.
First of course is the ongoing tug of war between Carl and I. B.C. (before child) I had come to the conclusion that it was better to figure out how to get the majority of things done on my own, and I had a pretty solid system worked out and it actually was fine. But then we bought this house, which is bigger, and we had a child, and now it doesn’t really work for me. It does work for the basics: kitchen, bathrooms, laundry, vaccuuming, general tidying overall.
But it doesn’t work for: raking, mowing, window washing, de-cluttering - I just find, and this is also related to some of the physical stuff lately, that there just isn’t enough time while I have energy.* And of course when things aren’t getting done, it bothers me.
And then when it bothers me, I also start to get into that headspace that Carl is setting a bad example. Which may or may not be true. So it’s a problem. I keep trying to attack it with organization and failing. I am starting to think we might have to try to budget for cleaning, but that would mean no vacation in March.
The second thing is the peculiar problem of our generation: we have too many toys. I mean, the vast majority of our toys are ones I think are good ones and have high play value - wooden train set, dollhouse, Playmobil, Lego, Duplo, and MegaBlocks, cars, dinos, a variety of types of blocks, art supplies & easel, and still the ubiquitous Little People. In some cases we’ve purchased the starter bits (dollhouse, trains, Lego), some have been garage sale wins (MegaBlocks, Little People) and the rest have been gifts (more of everything, some blocks, etc.)
And we have a metric ton of books and puzzles.
And Noah loves them all. He also still occasionally wants to get out the early toddler toys: big trucks, stacking toys, easier puzzles.
This last is what is sort of the problem. The love.
I have a toy rotation plan which I have largely implemented, and it used to work like a charm - a container or two of toys would go down into storage and be forgotten about for a month, and it would keep the sheer ‘noise’ quite in line.
But NOW Noah knows every single toy he has, I think. And asks for them. And sets up large elaborate things where the dinosaurs invade the Playmobil store. And does not want his train set up disturbed. (1/4 of our living floor is a Thomas set up; I actually don’t mind it ’cause it’s attractive but also because I can’t think of a day that goes by without it getting use. But it is there, so when you add the Lego in, it gets a bit sketchy.)
So it’s either a lot of almost daily work pulling out the ‘resting’ toys, an argument, or we need to have them out. And this is BEFORE Christmas. I’m tearing my hair out a bit. We’ve talked about how it’s nicer to be able to find the toys and he really gets it - when I point out the cars are easier to find if they go back in the car basket, he really makes the effort. But he’s 3. He really cannot be the solution.
I think one solution would be fewer toys. Although I grew up with a fair amount of toys, especially for the day, and they were nicely organized often by my mum and then by my sister and I, and it was one of the Good Things about my house. It wasn’t just quantity obviously, but quality and scope - I remember setting up huge Tinkertoy villages for the Little People and dolls, and horse events, and massive block structures. I definitely want that for Noah. (We never had Playmobil but wanted it; it wasn’t affordable for my parents, who largely purchased at garage sales.)
To maybe move that way a bit, though, I’ve tried to talk to Noah about the “kids who have nothing” and how we should give them toys (perhaps some Little People), and Noah’s quite keen - until it’s one of his toys, of course. I’m pretty sure in a few more years it will be easier.
But right now, the child’s a magpie, it’s all pretty important to him, I’m ambivalent - and it’s still a little hard to manage. He’s not ready to manage it entirely, so I spend probably a couple hours a week sorting out the toys again (with his help) - the Lego into the Lego, the Playmobil into the Playmobil, the dollhouse into the dollhouse, and so on and so forth. Otherwise it becomes unplayable.
(Now that I type this I think the dollhouse could probably have a big play break, but I worry a bit that if we put it away for too long he’ll absorb that boys aren’t supposed to play with it. Is that silly?)
It’s very tempting to just halve the lot, to be honest. Although part of me wants to keep them for FutureChild (I’m pretending no one gets new toys for said child) and part of me just doesn’t want to do that without Noah’s permission. He had one schoolbus (of four of various types) where the “stop” sign was bent, so I quietly pitched it in the night. He asked me where it was every day until I said it might have been thrown out (I know, liar) and then he cried. Obviously he is over it now, but I don’t want to keep doing that.**
On the other hand, my parents are near-dangerous packrats, and I know that’s a lifelong hardship. Although I DON’T think it has to be addressed at 3; maybe the reverse - I’m worried that I might make him insecure about his things and then he would hoard later.
Before I never felt like my space (emotional, physical) was invaded. Now I do sometimes feel like my space is being encroached on. And I don’t like feeling resentful about it.
I’m a bit torn about what to do.
We do have pretty good storage systems, lots of baskets-on-shelves-with-labels, upstairs and downstairs. I have also kept Noah’s actual room pretty peaceful, as well as ours, because I find it really helps with sleep. But it’s only just tottering on working right now, and I do think Christmas will be tough.
I’m thinking maybe with the new toys coming in, that will be a good time to pack up some old ones and really put them away in the garage?
Also, just to say - I don’t believe the house should be immaculate or anything. But I do place some value on order. When it’s crazy-messy, I feel it. Carl doesn’t though, at least not that I can tell. So just living in a mess for a few years is not that doable for me.
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* By that I mean, pretty much, that if I have to clean up while I’m tired - after 9 pm, let’s say - or all weekend - my childhood rage and anger spring to life. That’s part of what I worked out in myself. Sure, if there’s an especial challenge like visitors or stomach flu, it’s actually not a huge deal. But if it’s regular, I start to flip out. I don’t think that’s unreasonable either, to say that I won’t stay up late cleaning. But even if it were, that’s what it takes to stay balanced about it.
** I still have a thing about my stuff, since people in the system de-cluttered my entire CD collection (this was pre-iTunes or it might’ve been ripped) in 1999. Also, although my mum was pretty good about not de-cluttering, she did throw fits where she put ALL my stuff on the lawn or out for the trash, and I have memories of how awful that was that get wrapped up in it.
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Well, I’ve certainly been there with the toy thing. And it’s really tough, isn’t it, because there will be grand amalgam play situations, but there’s also the fact that it will be chaos the second day (and often emotionally exhausting for the kid, too — or is that just projection?!) if it’s not cleaned.
Oh, and bad news: my kids still wanted to play with Little People right up until the day I packed it away. Last year. When they were in First Grade.
Anyway, I don’t know what you do about it. There are really two separate issues: the marital one, regarding negotiation and who contributes what and why it’s crucial that Carl clean, too; and the kid one. The kid one can work several ways, I think: set a timer every night for a set amount of time, and say that you’re going to spend 10 minutes cleaning, even if that just means, as you put it, that the different stuff gets sorted into its own bins. Or set aside one area where the grand mixes can happen, and be left alone for a certain time, but have larger areas where you require that all toys be removed at the end of set times.
I don’t know. I mean, I think brainstorming this stuff is good. FlyLady has a whole set of pages on cleaning with toddlers/preschoolers, etc. I’m not a big believer in, “if it’s not this way by this time, bad habits will set in and never be moved.” Mostly because kids are changing so rapidly — I mean, my kids at three couldn’t wait to be allowed to set the table, clear the dishes, etc., and now they moan and whine about it (and in fact, just tonight I was girding myself up mentally to tackle that issue: chore charts need to be in our future, because if not, the kids will become sloths and hellions — see, catastrophe thinking is everywhere!).
I’m rambling. I want to acknowledge the particular legacy of your own childhood (I had a mom who did the whole “throw everything away after neglecting to help kids care for their stuff for months” too, btw) while also saying that yeah, it’s definitely a generational challenge, helping our kids manage their stuff.
I could write a bunch, but I think I’ll stick to sharing this story from a friend. She’s got a teenage son who doesn’t notice the mess in front of him. My friend is fairly OK with it but her husband is flipping out. “He’ll never learn to clean up” etc. And her experience is that her mother made her bed every day when she lived at home. And although she never, ever made her own bed, she learned an appreciation for having a made bed, and since she moved out all those years ago, she makes her bed every day. So that’s one take on “will we ruin their lives if we clean up after them?”