Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up ~ A.A. Milne.
I’ve noticed my photography of Z is related to the amount of photos I take of other people. When I take more photos of clients, the number of photos I take of Z goes down. Sigh. Such is life. September and October I have some family photoshoots so am excited to take their photos. However, it is always nice for me to have some photos of Z just so I can look back and reflect on what Z was doing at that stage.
Z’s memory is good now and she asks for her toys and their whereabouts, uh oh. I have a black foot rest in our family room that opens, in which I’ve hidden a bunch of Z’s toys and I rotate them every couple of weeks/month. Lately Z has been asking for hidden toys so I tell her to go look out the window, and while she’s not looking, I hastily grab out the hidden to and shut the foot-rest-box back so she won’t notice her hidden stash. If Z discovers her hidden stash of toys, I can only imagine our toy mess x 3! Living in a town home is wonderful and I love the space, so hiding some of Z’s toys makes our space more liveable!
I’ve cleared out 2 kitchen cabinets where Z does most of her playing during the day. Before these materials were dumped higgledy-piggledy in these cabinets so one would have to dig to find Z’s things. I noticed from a Montessori book, attractive wooden baskets contained lots of great learning materials or toys. I didn’t want to go buy a whole bunch of baskets, so ended up using ziploc containers that I don’t really use and 2 shoeboxes.
I’m really happy with how it’s turned out as Z puts the right things in the right box, which makes finding a beloved toy so much easier and with less headache. It also makes me feel organized!
Dr. Seuss ABC Cards & Animal Cards were $1 each from Target. Purple Container too was $1 from Target. Yellow bowl from Ikea not $1 and forgot how much!
Z baking set from Ikea -we stored it in a Target Shoe box. I never used to keep shoe boxes; now I see so many uses for them!
This is an old Victoria Secret perfume box that we call Z’s beauty box. In here goes all her beauty accessories. She is obsessed with capping and uncapping chapsticks so her orange chapstick goes in here too. Don’t know where it is at moment –she’ll be on the hunt for it soon.
Z loves lens cases! I think most toddlers would . I let her use my old ones and she can cap them and uncap them for quite some time. They’re also great to bring to a restaurant when waiting for Z’s food. Light and portable and keep her busy!
An old tissue box keeps her foam letters in them pretty well!
One day she lugged down her bathtub. It keeps her stuffed animals and too-many-dolls in them quite nicely! Now we know where to find a favorite doll, or Elmo.
This is a taco tray my mother bought me. It’s pretty big, and with a family of 3, we didn’t use it much. It is now used everyday and stores Z’s playdough cookie cutters in it beautifully. It also is great to organize colors, numbers, letters and more.
It feels good to mostly-know where Z’s things will be. I said mostly because Z’s things get scattered (remember the chapstick?)
Hope we can keep this up and I can be more organized in mind, body, and soul! If you have more tips for me on my quest to organization, please share!
Doodling Through Life 