Easy Mess Clean Up Tip

The button jar.

It's one of those love-hate relationships.

On one hand, it keeps the toddler SO busy for a good long time.
But then it's also SUPER messy and hard to clean up.

Here is my trick for cleaning up stuff like this off the carpets ~  a lid.  

or a book.
or a snowshovel... ok maybe not a snowshovel...but it might work!

Step one:

Mess Observed.  It's ALL over the room!!  It's going to take forever to clean up, right?

The guilty party.

Here's what you do:

Grab a lid like this, or a big children's board book works too.

Then just start scraping the floor!

See how it leaves a nice clean path!!  

So much easier than trying to use your hands

A pile is so much easier to clean up than having it spread all over the room. 

At this point I have the "guilty party" (uh-hem, Ruby) clean up the pile and put the buttons back in the jar herself.  She even sings the Daniel Tiger clean up song while she helps.

Now hide the button jar!

Who am I kidding....I'm just going to let her do it again tomorrow.  

I've got stuff to do!

This trick works for bigger stuff too.  When toys are ALL.OVER. the play room I grab a big board book (think over a foot big) and start scraping everything into a big pile.  

My kids do better at cleaning up when there's one big pile to clean up than when it's spread out all over the room.  Or at least that's what I think.  

How do you clean up your big messes?  Have you ever tried this method?  How about a snow shovel--I've seriously contemplated getting one just for toys. 

 

One Month

Everybody loves baby feet!

Ruby is One Month old!

I’m anxiously weighing her (in a parent-holding her on the scale hack-y kind of way) because I don’t think she is gaining much.  I don't think she is a very good eater and I can’t get her to take a bottle.  The one time I got her to drink a bottle she pretty much threw up the entire 2-3 oz all over me, the chair, the floor.  I’ve never seen a baby throw up like that in one shot!

She’s really really fussy especially at night.  It’s not enough to call it colic, but it’s enough to drive us to insanity.  She wakes up every 2 hours at night and she eats all the time! It’s pretty exhausting trying to appease her and keep the other two kids in check, too. Don’t come to my house because it’s a mess all the time.  Sam is my big mess-maker and creates the biggest chaos of toys and mess every single day!

Ruby had a some broken blood vessels in her eyes (especially the left) from birth trauma.  This picture shows it  pretty good.  Her eyes are still really dark, but I’m pretty sure they will lighten up and be bright blue like mine and the boys’ eyes.  The red spot should take a few more weeks but will eventually get better and go away. {10-12-14}

{ 10-14-14}

Here she is hanging out in the recovered bouncy chair.  She does not love it like the boys and will only be there 5 or 10 minutes before wanting to be picked up. {10-16-14}

I love these pictures—our own little sleeping beauty  {10-23-14}

This picture is shortly after a bath (her hair is still curly) and sucking on her binky even though she hates it.  She’s my only baby to hate the binky from day one and also to prefer a Soothie type instead of the Mam type I love and bought tons of. (figures)  {10-28-14}