A few days ago King Kong...I mean, Paige decided it was time to start spreading messy joy wherever she goes. She clears every shelf she comes to. Dumps every basket. Flings every book. It's like a horror movie. I also call her my little Godzilla. Through the day, I am constantly picking up the same spewed crap over and over. But then she just stays right with me and re-flings it all immediately after cleaning.
You walk in the room and you can't see the floor. NO FLOOR. Just where the toy-monster decided to vomit little wooden shape pieces, plastic shape pieces, stacking cups, and other various piece-y things. Then, a corner or three where the toy monster pooped a pile of books. Books EVERYWHERE. The girl loves to enjoy books, but I didn't think she'd want to tile the floor with them. They act like little banana peels making us slip and slide all over. More vomit of stuffed animals, figures, and other random doodads add a lovely sprinkle. She doesn't have TONS of toys, but she DOES have ones that happen to have a ton of pieces. Shape sorters, stacking rings, blocks, books, stacking cups, magnetic letters and the like. WHYYYYY???????
I was exhausted this morning after another clean fest gone awry. Another Godzilla attack. I swear, my eye started to twitch. After tripping for the millionth time in 2 days I decided to go through all her stuff and thin it out, to put it mildly. I asked Chris to bring a huge plastic bin of stuff and 4 bags of books to the basement all to cycle in the future once she's "tired" of what she has out now. There should be a hell of a lot less mess to clean now and should be easier for P to choose what she wants to play with. Her huge wicker laundry basket of books is gone. Now, there are only maybe 6 to choose from. I filled 4 little grocery bags with books and will rotate a bag per week so the books stay fresh.
Back in the day when people used to tell me about their toddlers and how they would run through a room and dump out everything in sight onto the floors creating general chaos I figured it was because they just let them do whatever and didn't really care about the mess. I just figured that one day I would be diligent about teaching my little one how to pick up her things. Smug bitch that I was. Well, now I have my own kid and the reality of the whole thing has shown its ugly head. Paige HAD never cared to make messes. She just sort of went from one activity to the next...would generally only take what she wanted from the shelves--one thing at a time. I thought I had gotten lucky and dodged a bullet. (HA HA HA!!!!) I also quickly learned that she is simply too young to explain about putting her toys away. I'm sure she understands maybe 15 percent of what I say. And, yes, she has selective hearing too. I had always assumed that if they walked, they could listen to you. Isn't that hilarious? I was so stoooooooopid.
I will slowly start working with her on learning how to put things away. Everything seems to have a specific home now, so that should help make it easier. But I know it will be a long time before she will be doing it. It takes a lot of repetition and time. Again; I can't believe I used to be so smug and dumb about it. Chalk it up to another parenting lesson learned. *sigh*
Funny how we look back and want to smack ourselves silly for being smug about Parenthood before we actually experienced it. We could all probbly write a book about our previous smugness. I used to think that Women who didnt lose the baby weight just werent applying themselves...they obviously didnt care how they looked anymore...SHAME ON ME!!!!!!!!! Oh...how Ive learned that baby weight is a beast of its own kind! :)
ReplyDeleteI currently reading a cool book called "What's going on in there?" It's a brain book from inception to 5 years old. They say in the book to stimulate a childs bring you should rotate their toys/books but do so every 2 weeks because that's how long it takes them to forget that book or toy and then when you bring it out again it is totally new to them and their brains have to work to figure out how it works or its like reading the story for the first time . . . as they get older they do start to have longer memory but at the age that your little one is it is a perfect way to prevent her from getting bored.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Meladie about rotating the toys, I often do this, just to prevent a total invasion of our living space by toys and tiny objects. Sometimes, she screams with joys when they reappear. I love it! As for what she understands, I am now convinced it is MUCH MORE than 15%. I used to be smug about parents thinking that their toddler understand "EVERYTHING" they said, but now I have concrete evidence that they understand A LOT (try to ask her to do something without giving any clue about which object/colour your are mentioning and you might be surprised!).
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if you've used the Teach My Baby present your got for Paige's 1st birthday yet? Do you like it? Is it worth the $50? What's your review?
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