Experiment Day #2

A few weeks ago I did an experiment where I purposely allowed the house to go to disaster mode, then cleaned it as fast as I could... alone. When I told my mother what I had done, she told me I should re-do the experiment with my kids helping, and see how much time we could save.

The kitchen 4:20pm

Another view of the kitchen 4:21pm

The dining area 4:21pm

Yesterday turned out to be that day. I didn't mean for the house to get totally out of control. We weren't even home for half the day. We started the day rushing off to our homeschool group, and returned around lunch-time. We normally eat lunch at our co-op, but we were late and didn't have time to pack a lunch, so we came home instead. 

The family room 4:21pm

Another view of the family rom 4:21pm

The hallway 4:22pm

After making lunch, I was pretty much ready to crash for the weekend. So, I sat down with my computer and allowed the kids to play. We'd already finished our school-work for the week, and I wasn't really motivated to do anything else yet. Shortly after 4pm one of my boys complained that there was "too much pee" in the toilet. I went into the kids bathroom and discovered that the other twin had stuffed about half a roll of toilet paper down the toilet, and there was a flood slowly creeping towards the hallway. I quickly threw a couple towels down to dam the flow of water, and plunged the toilet. This is when I noticed that the laundry basket was totally overflowing as well. 

The bathroom - still with a puddle on the floor, but contained for now 4:22pm 

The girls' room 4:22pm

They had been building tents in their room 4:23pm 

The boys' room 4:23pm

As I looked around the house and realized we were back in disaster mode, I decided now was a good time to try to recover WITH the kids. 

The gathering 4:24pm

I rang our "dinner bell" to let the kids know it was time to gather, and I sat them all down on the fireplace hearth to explain the situation. Then I gave them each an assignment. Most of these assignments were their normal chores for the week anyway. Then I went around taking pictures and helping with the assignments in the normal order I do for the house pickup. 

1. Move Laundry

K moving laundry 4:28pm

K (age 7) had already emptied the dryer earlier, but the washer was still running when she did it. So now she moved the load from the washer to the dryer, then started another load of kids clothes (and emptied the overflowing basket from the bathroom!).

2. Clear Kitchen Table & Counters

C (age 5) started clearing table & counters while I moved on to help D.

3. Wash Dishes

D unloading the dishwasher 4:29pm

The dishes had been run earlier in the day, but never unloaded, and now the sink had more in it. So D (age 6) an I unloaded together while the others worked. 

J2 & M working on the clean-up pile 4:32pm

Also during this time I had assigned the J1 & J2 (age 3 1/2) to work on the "clean-up pile" which involved throwing everything they could find onto the train table. M (age 16 months) tried to help with this too. When K finished moving laundry, I sent her to help the boys with the clean-up pile, since they were already getting distracted.

4. Wipe down Kitchen Sink, Table, Counters & Stove

C wiping off the table 4:32pm

By this time, C had finished clearing off the table & counters and and moved on to wiping things down. 

C moving chairs 4:39pm

When she finished wiping the table & counters, C moved the chairs out of the kitchen so I could sweep. Then she went to start folding blankets in the girls' room. 

D loading the dishwasher 4:40pm

By now D and I had finished putting the clean dishes away, and started loading the dishwasher again. It wasn't full enough to run, so we just finished wiping down the kitchen and moved on. 

5. Sweep Floor

J1 working on the clean-up pile 4:40pm

When D and I finished dishes, I assigned her to start assembling the chunky puzzles so they would fit back into the toy bin, and I swept the kitchen floor. 

Mid-Clean-Up Status

When I finished sweeping the kitchen, I went around the rest of the house to inspect the progress so far. Time elapsed since "the gathering" - 22 minutes. (For reference, the last time I did this it took me 31 minutes to get to this point on my own... and the kids have already been working ahead on the clean-up & put away.)

K had already put away all the stuffed animals 4:46pm

C was folding blankets 4:46pm 

I asked J1 & J2 to put the chairs back into the kitchen 4:46pm 

D was busy putting the puzzles together 4:46pm

6. Straighten & Wipe Bathrooms

A clean bathroom again 4:55pm

Now it was time for me to get back to the bathroom. Straightening didn't take too long, and K had already emptied the laundry basket, so I had a perfect place to put all the wet towels I ended up with after mopping up the flood and wiping the floor. 

7. Empty Garbages

I didn't get any pictures of it, but D took out the kids' bathroom garbage for me, and J1 got a new bag for it.

8. Clean-up Pile

Boys' room picked up 4:59pm

Girls' room picked up - two of the girls wet their beds the night before, and their sheets were just moved to the dryer 5:00pm 

The rest of the girls' room picked up 5:00pm

With my help, the rest of the clean-up piles went very quickly and we got everything else to the train table. 

9. Put Away Stray Items

Putting away things from the train table, the puzzle bin is almost full of completed puzzles! 5:00pm

Down to the last few piles 5:04pm

K and I quickly sorted the remaining items on the train table and K, C, J1, & J2 quickly grabbed piles of stuff and put them away.

10. Vacuum

When we finished the stuff, I grabbed the vacuum from the garage and vacuumed the bedrooms, hallway and family room. K moved the cord for me midway through so I could actually get the one corner of the family room I can't reach when plugged into the bathroom outlet. 

Freshly vacuumed family room 5:15pm 

More of the family room, and the hallway, all freshly vacuumed 5:15pm

11. Fold Laundry

Again, I was burned out by this time, and since I didn't fold laundry during the last disaster clean-up, I decided not to this time either. All the clean laundry is piled on the toddler bed in my bedroom, out of the way.

Total time elapsed since "the gathering" - 51 minutes. 

Compared to doing the clean-up on my own - 1 hour 21 minutes.

Verdict - I saved 30 minutes by working WITH the kids... even though I spent a lot of time trying to keep them on task, and several still got very distracted.

Still, less than an hour after "the gathering" the kids were free to play in a clean house. They decided to practice some gymnastics moves. :)

Playing in a clean house is fun!

Accommodating Individuality: What Hasn't Worked for Us

We currently have 8 individuals living in our house (soon to be 9). Each of these people has their own personality, their own desires, their own likes and dislikes. We also live in a very small home, averaging approximately 165 sq ft per person.

I've had a lot of questions recently about how we accommodate individuality in our home. What we do with "personal" items, or special trinkets for each person, and how we handle individual preferences. With such limited space, we have several general rules to help everyone live comfortably, and then we have tried to create personal space for everyone. We have not always been successful in finding solutions that work for everyone, though, so I thought I'd share several of the things that didn't work for us. Maybe they'll work for you, or maybe they'll help you find something that does work for you.

House Rules
The first rule in our house is that it is our house... Mine and my husband's. The house does not belong to the kids. They did not pay for it, they are not financially responsible for it, and they do not have rights to the house (this rule was the same in all rentals we lived in prior to purchasing our home). Our children are given stewardship over their bedrooms, but the rooms and the space still belong to Mom and Dad.

The second rule is that if you can't take care of it, you don't get it. If the kids cannot maintain an acceptable level of order and cleanliness in their room, they lose the privilege of keeping certain items there. This is one reason that our children's rooms are so barren right now. In the past, we have allowed our girls to keep a few special items in their room... but they were rarely put away where they belonged, and that privilege was lost. We have also had crayon, pen, pencil, and marker drawn on the walls and dresser, so art supplies are not allowed in the bedrooms anymore.

Communal Property
Most of the toys & supplies in our home are considered communal property. No one "owns" any of the hair accessories, they are simply available on a first come-first served basis. The Duplos and blocks are meant to be shared, or for taking turns, even though a couple Duplo sets were specifically given to the boys as Christmas presents.

When our children receive gifts of toys, they are usually allowed to play with them on their own for a period of time, then they are put with the rest of the toys of that type and are considered "share-able." There are still some toys and items that seem to retain an owner, even though they are shared toys. Everyone seems to know that the small stuffed hippo belongs to J2, and the lioness belongs to J1. The zebra is K's, and everyone knows it's name too... but the zebra, the lioness, and the hippo still end up in the large toy box with the other stuffed animals every day.

*Special note: growing up our toys always ended up as communal as well, which wasn't a big deal. But now that most of my siblings are grown, my mother wishes she had at least labeled toys with who had received them as gifts and things so that it would be easier to divide up the toys as she passes them on. We are working on labeling a lot of our toys in this way... similar to Andy from Toy Story. :)

Projects & Special Toys
Every child has toys and items they are especially possesive of: the special doll they have slept with since they were a baby, their favorite drawing of a rainbow, random craft projects from when Grandma visited, even the picture of their favorite pizza from the weekly mailer.

I understand the need to keep these special items in a special place, and away from the communal toys & projects, so we have tried a couple methods for helping our children keep their private things, but also keep them from taking over our house.

Gallery Wall
One method we tried with varying success was a "gallery wall" in the girls' room. In a previous apartment, we hung a piece of yarn and attached special projects with clothespins. We allowed the girls one clothespin for each year (so, our then 4 year old had 4 clothespins). The girls chose what to keep, and when they wanted a new picture or project hung, they had to choose which one to get rid of from the wall.

This worked for a while, but as they got older the projects got heavier and they got more clothespins. Eventually they decided to use the yarn as a swing and pulled the whole thing off the wall... it didn't go back up after that.

Then, in our new home, we allowed the girls to hang special pictures & drawings on the wall using push pins. This didn't last very long because the push pins would fall out and could be dangerous for little ones.

I liked the clothespin idea before, but needed something sturdier. I installed cup hooks on the girls' bedroom wall, and gave them binder clips to hang from the cup hooks. This was simple enough that the girls could keep up with the art replacement on their own, and sturdy enough to hold most projects, and some 3D items.

Unfortunately, the girls didn't keep things maintained very well. The younger ones ended up ripping the cup hooks right out of the wall so they could use them for a different "project" and we slowly stopped hanging things altogether. In this picture you can see our oldest still had a few things hung, but her sisters hooks below hers are empty and most of them are actually not in the wall anymore.

Cubbies
Another method we have tried to use is one we call "cubbies." We purchased an inexpensive shoe storage solution that has 6 cubby type spaces in it. Each of the girls was assigned two cubbies and allowed to keep whatever they wanted in their cubby as long as it followed two simple rules: 1) you may not keep anything in your cubby that belongs to someone else, 2) everything in your cubby must fit IN your cubby.

This method is still in use now, but we have had some problems with it as well. The first problem is that the girls can't find anything they want from the cubbies, and end up dumping the entire contents to find what they are looking for, and then don't put anything back. Also, the cubbies have been used for play as well as storage, and they have not held up as well as I would have liked.

For these reasons, the girls have lost the privilege of keeping the cubbies in their room. For now, they are kept in the school room, where they only have access to them with permission.

Why These Didn't Work
Honestly, I believe that the main reason these solutions have not worked for us is because our children are simply too young and immature. I firmly believe that if you really care about something, you will take care of it. Our children simply do not care enough about their personal items to properly care for them. But they are learning.

We will continue to offer our children opportunities to care for their own personal belongings, and if they show maturity, they will be allowed to keep more things separate from the communal items. If they do not take care of their personal items, and leave them out of place, refuse to put them away, or allow younger siblings to make a mess with them (like leaving markers on the floor in a bedroom while they are playing with ponies in a different room), they will lose those privileges.

Future Options
While some of the ideas we have tried so far have not worked, we have thought of other options to try in the future, when our children seem to show a bit more responsibility. These ideas are mostly for a defined space for our children to keep their treasures, so that they can have some control over what is in the space, but they are still required to keep things they are not actively using IN the space. Some options for this space include: plastic bins stored under a bed, a locking box stored under a bed or in a closet, a closet drawer or shelf, a nightstand with a drawer.

Someday, if we ever have more space and resources available to us... I would love to provide each of my children with a armoire to customize however they choose, and store whatever they want. (Lots of great ideas here and here or just Googling "repurposed armoires" and scrolling through the images.) But there's no way we could fit that much furniture in our current home, so we'll be working on a smaller scale for now. :)

Toy Rotation

After showing our childrens' rooms and the lack of toys there, I know some are wondering where we do allow toys to be stored. Truthfully, most of the toys are stored in the garage... off limits. Most of the toys are stored in plastic bins from Ikea. We have 12 bins total. We have been using a toy rotation for the past 2 months or so and we LOVE it. We divided the toys into approximately 4 equal groups, and only one of those groups is allowed in at any given time. We did our best to make sure that there were some "girly" things and some "boyish" things in each group, and things appealing to older kids as well as safe for younger ones. Each group of toys/activities also includes one larger item that doesn't fit in the plastic bins, and one activity that is only allowed out during naptime.

When the toys are in the house, the "safe" ones are stored in our "coffee table" which is actually a train table. Some of the "less safe" toys, or toys with more pieces, or that could get mixed up with the sets in the drawers too easily, are stored in our hall closet on a shelf. Also in that closet is a fabric tunnel, which is always available to be brought out during playtime.

The kids know which week we're on by the color of the bins we bring in. Last week was the pink week. The kitchen things (toy dishes & food), and the dolly things (dolls, doll clothing, paper dolls & polly pocket type toys) were emptied into the train table drawers.

It's not organized at all, because that's what kids do.

The puzzle bin (full of wooden Melissa & Doug type puzzles) was stored in the closet when not used. Originally we had the puzzles on a different week, but we had to shift some of the toys around after the first set of rotations, because we learned that the boys didn't have enough vehicles to play with during pink week. Instead, they got bored and started using the remote controls as vehicles and swords. Several of the chunky puzzles are vehicle puzzles, and the boys now use those for their vehicle games.

The bottom bin is the puzzles, the bins
on the middle shelf are the empty bins
that were dumped into the  drawers. 

Our giant waffle blocks are also brought out during the pink week, and when not in use, these are stored in the corner next to the couch.

The naptime activity during pink week is legos. The legos are stored in shallow plastic bins on a shelf in the school/sewing room (more on that later), and must be closely supervised, since most of them are Daddy's legos, and he's very particular about them. ;)

This week is green week. The train table is full of cars and trains (what it was meant for!).

The closet holds a small plastic treasure chest full of dress-ups, and the naptime activity is a toy bin full of crafts (play-doh, perler beads, bendaroos, clay, and other random crafting supplies).

Next will be white week. The train table will hold two toys bins full of plastic animals & My Little Ponies, along with a fabric barn. The closet will hold a bin of baby toys, including some small wooden blocks, a tool set, and lacing beads. The closet will also hold a large plastic My Little Pony castle (which was gifted to us, and I don't like). During naptime, the girls will be working with me to learn some basic sewing or cooking skills as we work on various projects.


Finally, we have blue week. The train table will hold a toy bin full of Duplos, and a small Melissa & Doug box of wooden blocks. Two more toy bins will be in the closet, one full of baby toys, including a wooden Noah's ark with animals, some small balls, and some brightly colored noise-making toys (my least favorite). The other toy bin contains art supplies including markers & paint for the naptime activity.

Saturday afternoon, as we prep for dinner, we pack up the toy bins for the week. We keep Sunday as a day of worship and allow books and scripture focused DVDs after church. We also allow coloring or other drawing/writing in coloring books or notebooks. Then, we bring out the new week's toys on Monday morning, after the kids are dressed & ready for the day, and we've had breakfast & Circle Time.

We've gone through the rotation twice now, and it's working really well. The kids don't get bored with fewer toys... they get more creative with them. And it doesn't take more than 10 minutes to throw all the toys into the train table during pick-up... even if only one person is working alone. I don't stress over the messy house, because I know it won't take us long to pick it up. Here's a couple before/after pics from last week and last night.

Last week, before pick-up

Last week, after

Last night, before

Last night, after

The other rule we have established is that we will not be buying any more toy bins. Fitting with the 80% rule, if/when we accumulate more toys than fit in the bins (ie, too many trains & cars), we have to thin out and get rid of some. Two bins full of cars, trains, and tracks, along with one small chest of dress-ups is more than enough to keep 6 kids occupied for an entire week worth of free-play time. Add the crafts during nap-time, and the kids are usually sad to see the toys go on Saturday afternoon, because they "didn't get to play enough." But they're excited on Monday morning to see "new" toys they haven't seen in three weeks.

Childrens' Bedrooms - How it Works for Us

Currently we live in a 1300 sq ft, 4 bedroom, 2 bath rambler. The master suite is occupied by us, one bedroom is our school/sewing/craft/reading room, and the other two rooms are the childrens' bedrooms, one for girls, and one for boys.

The girls' room is 11'x12'. It holds one twin bed, a set of twin bunk-beds, a roll-out twin-size trundle under the bunk-beds, and a 5' white dresser.

The dresser is a relatively new addition to the room, a hand-me-down from my parents. Each of the older three girls has one small drawer and one large drawer to store all of their folded clothing, and our baby girl has one large drawer. Before we had the dresser, the girls stored their clothes in the closet in wire basket drawers from Ikea.

Their closet has one shelf which holds 10 file boxes. These boxes are "memory" boxes and contain memorabilia for me, my husband, and each of the girls. Five boxes on the floor in the corner of the closet, contain off-season, or off-size girls' clothing. The basket drawers are still in the closet, but now contain extra linens, cloth diapers, and several drawers are actually empty. The girls' dresses are hung in the closet.

*We have taken the doors off the closets in both rooms because they were sliding doors and the kids kept knocking them off the rails. 

The boys' room is smaller, 9.5'x11'. In it, we have two twin beds, which can be bunked when the boys get a bit older, a small nightstand (that actually matches the dresser in the girls' room), and a wooden toy chest that holds all the stuffed animals in the house. The nightstand is completely empty, and mainly serves as a shelf for the boys to put their water bottles.

The boys' closet is smaller, and the shelf only holds 6 file boxes, plus a couple of photo boxes. The photo boxes are mine, 2 of the file boxes are memorabilia for the boys and the other 4 are off-season and off-size boys' clothing. The lower 4 basket drawers in the closet hold the boys' folded clothes (2 each). The upper drawers are half empty, but hold a couple guest blankets. The lowered clothing rod holds the boys Sunday clothes where they can reach them.

In general, toys do not belong in bedrooms. The stuffed animals are the only exception to that rule. Occasionally, toys are allowed to be played with in the bedrooms, but they are never stored there.