guest post: high heeled mom

Lindsey is a wife, full-time attorney, and mother of three little girls- 3, 1.5, and 4 months. She loves theme parks, Wawa coffee, and her crock-pot. She tolerates her serious, committed, long-term relationships with Dora the Explorer and her Avent breast pump. She hates cold weather, stories about bad things happening to children, and disorganization. And many years ago, she went to college with Elissa, the author behind Green Moon Rising.

I cannot abide untidiness. When they say, “You can’t do everything, sometimes you have to live with less than perfection around the house”, they’re right- to an extent (whoever “they” are). I can let cleanliness go (at least until the next time the cleaning lady stops by), but I NEED tidiness. If things are scattered around, I can’t just live with it- it saps my energy and drives me crazy.

Since I’m forever putting things away “as I go along”, my storage areas do tend towards untidiness, and I have to regularly reorganize according to my current needs. Here, I’m going to tell a bit about how I re-organized my linen closet with two toddlers at my heels.

The before pictures. No, I don’t always keep things piled in my hall- I was feeling ambitious, and these are the other things from various places that I hoped to get into the closet as well. Yes, there are actually laundry baskets full of blankets stacked on top of one another, above my head height. That’s what we call “easy access”. Except not.

Also take note of small person peeping around the door. That’s Rebecca. At one year and nine months old, she’s in what we call the “raccoon stage”. For these purposes, it means she grabs whatever’s within her reach and takes off with it.
Step one: remove everything from closet and pile neatly. Fold all towels and blankets.

Put short people to work picking things up off floor that are already there, or that fall. (This is also an excellent way short people can help when you’re pregnant. Which I’m not.)

Mostly emptied. I have a handy wall to pile things on. As I’m piling, I’m categorizing. Towels of each color. Adult blankets. Kid blankets. Sheets. Rags. Old towels we use for stomach-bug purposes. And for a few minutes here and there, random My Little Ponies and alphabet blocks. (Those I just slid out of the way with my feet.)

Some things I’m leaving as is for now. The sleeping bags are rarely used, so up high is good and I didn’t want to change it. I put some “tall” things- the aerobed and a couple spare pillows- on the other shelf with lots of height. Looking later, though, that didn’t work out and I changed it.

I’ve also got “tall” space on the bottom right that wasn’t being put to use. I measured it and realized there was an old Wal-mart shelf sitting in a closet in my youngest daughter’s room which was almost empty. It fit!

Nothing makes me happier than killing two birds with one stone. Even when there’s a 3-year-old following you as you drag the shelf, saying repeatedly, “Mommy, what doing?”

Finally, one of the areas I emptied out that I hoped to consolidate was the space under the sink in the guest bathroom- eventually to be our girls’ bathroom. I hauled out a ton of towels and this is what was left- old paint cans and some flea shampoo. The paint cans were disposed of and the flea shampoo relocated. This space is going to be for towels. All the towels except for our spare set really get used in that bathroom, anyway, and towels under the sink is a lot more kid-safe than a lot of other things people keep under the sink.

Note: we only have one set of cabinet latches in our house- in our bathroom, because the girls often play there while I’m showering, and I don’t want to rearrange those. For the most part, I’d rather just trust them and keep an eye on them, instead of restraining them. That said, I’d rather that if they’re exploring spaces, they explore spaces that contain towels, not drain cleaner.

Towels! Again, though, these pictures were taken as I progressed, and I changed my mind later on once I saw what was left.

Pulled out the “hurt” and “sick” boxes to clean up. Threw away everything expired and did some consolidating. Why would I need two bags of cough drops- I just tossed them all into one bag. The other picture shows boxes I was able to empty to save space. The gas drops box is about twice as big as just the bottle of gas drops, and the Tylenol and Gas X were partially empty duplicates- more consolidation.

“Mommy, candy? You got candy?” (reaching hands…)

“No. Not candy. It’s vegetables.”

“I don’t LIKE veggatals.”

“See then? No grabbin’.”

(Note: I am not above lying to my children.)

Getting somewhere! The “hurt” and “sick” boxes (an sorting innovation originated by my husband early in college) fit in that narrow spot on top of the shelf, along with a heating pad and our nebulizer. The small shelf is beginning to be populated by baby blankets. We don’t have an excess of anything, except blankets, and those are always handy.

Down to just a few things! The blue hamper holds rags and old towels for cleaning purposes, and it was always hard to sort the small rags from the big towels when I needed one or the other, so I decided to separate them out at last.

Rearranged under the sink, like I said. Now old towels are on the right under there, which is an even better place to have them handy the next time someone (kid, cat) throws up or we need to give the dog a bath.

Just about done! I tidied up the door rack at the same time as the “hurt” and “sick” boxes, and the back shelves (now that towels are gone) are devoted almost entirely to blankets (which, yes, are sorted somewhat by color). The right side, going up, now contains extra pillows on top.

Pushed in the vacuum and rag hamper, and we’re done!

And the toddlers never stopped circling my heels. You just nod, smile, and give them a towel when they’re trying to grab a vacuum attachment. The towels can always come back later.

If you have any questions, topics, or comments for Lindsey, please feel free to visit her at High Heeled Mom!