Cleaning up is hard to do.

James sometimes favors his sister’s pink boots over his brown, manly ones.  And sometimes he rocks a headband too.

I’ve had this Sesame Street book for forever, and James LOVES it!  I think Cookie Monster has outstripped Elmo as his favorite Muppet, but for sure they’re very close.

During rest time the girls play in either James’ room or their own room, sometimes both.  On days when the rooms are messy going in, I don’t worry too much about them being super cleaned-up after nap time.  BUT on days when we I have worked hard on giving them a clutter-free space to play, I insist (most of the time) on the room returning to that state after their quiet time.  The girls don’t love this rule.  Sometimes I’m lazy and don’t feel like enforcing the clean-up.  Other times it’s just very stressful to stay on top of it.  And everybody’s whiney.  Yesterday I decided to “lock” them in the room so they couldn’t get out until it was cleaned to my satisfaction.

 

I can see them so I know if they’re actually working on it, and I can call out some encouragement.  :)  Now, they are big and the gate is small, so it’s not like I’m really locking them in, just visually reminding them that they have a job to do.  And it keeps me from being too lazy and just letting the mess slide when they’re whiney and I’m tired.

It has worked well the last couple of days.

Last night the signal from NBC worked great for the first two hours of the primetime broadcast of the Olympics.  Fine through sports I’m not particularly interested in and preliminary races I don’t enjoy watching.  And then when it was time for the Olympics and some swimming finals, the signal got crappy.  Of course.  I know we need an new antenna, we just haven’t done it yet.  Despite it’s age and the fact that one of the ears is a little broken, it’s a good little piece of equipment.  And anyway, we didn’t have a new one at 9:30 last night.  So we moved it around until it was in the only spot for a good signal, and then we built it a tower.

All it took was two TV trays, a bin, a basket, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

We plan to go shopping this weekend.

Yesterday I stripped our cloth diapers (to remove any residue from detergent or creams), so this morning they were all clean at the same time.  I couldn’t help myself – I had to take some pictures of the stash.  :)

I have 17 one size Bum Genius snap pocket diapers, 2 Fuzzibunz one size pockets, and 3 Fuzzibunz medium pockets.  These are what fit James right now anyway.  It’s the bulk of what we have though.

We really have plenty for cloth diapering just one child – it’s wonderful!  If we have another baby a few of these will need to be replaced.  Some are showing the wear we’ve inflicted on them.  The BGs are my favorites, and since we have enough, I’m sticking the FBs in the closet for back-up.  They make good back-up; they don’t fit James quite as well as the BGs due to his slightly scrawny physique.  :)

Well, that post was all over the place – time to go fix dinner!