I emptied the bottom two shelves of my living room bookcase to "temporarily" hold baby books and a basket of toys. I've never gotten them back.  Today they are full of teen and tween fiction, Harry Potter, and science books on space and archeology.

It doesn't bother me at all.  Too soon I'll get those shelves back.  I can't even imagine what I need them for.

Clutter, on the other hand, I hate.  bleh.

Lily has a toy area in every room of our house. In our  bedroom it's a small basket, in the kitchen area HER kitchen is set up, our living room has about 1/3 of the big stuff, the office holds stuffed animals and her bedroom and playroom take the other 2/3s. If we put everything away at the end of the day? It looks just fine to me. I've had a few friends comment that they aren't sure if they could handle such a big toy presence- they keep most of their stuff contained in toy rooms- one friend actually hauls a bunch of stuff out every night, all the way down the stairs and then back up before bed to keep her house clutter free. I think that's too much work :).

Seems to me "messy" is a state of mind. I've often said, if you think pet hair is "messy" my house is a disaster. If I vacuumed once a day it wouldn't ever be gone.

I said I would NEVER co-sleep. Two years later the kid is finally in her own room, in her own bed. Except, you know, last night when she came and slept with us!

We are just now doing some redecorating as I finally feel as if I can get at least part of my house back.  

Where to begin?  Well, for years, we had a corner in our family room that was the "toy corner".  Ofcourse, this started out as a "toy box"...and yep...it was one of those ugly, bright green, plastic bins.  The ugly box did not begin to hold all the toys...sure it still set there, but the toys overflowed.  Hence, the "toy corner".   Alas, the toys are gone.  

I also held back really replacing much of anything...carpets, furniture, etc.  Well, the carpets are GOING.  We've already purchased new flooring for the entire downstairs that will go down as soon as we get everything painted.  

it always creeps me out to see all traces of young children eliminated from common areas of the house.  My feeling is, they live here.  They are even kind of the point.  

The amount of toys drives me crazy, though, and the fact that they don't get played with.  Simone doesn't even care that much about toys, although Milo is shaping up to.  Now that we have a large garage, I got three HUGE bins so I could store and rotate the toys.  I also look forward to the day I introduce the "new" ones, which I haven't done yet, and hope that they will actually be played with for once.

Another One Bites the Dust.

my parents decorated with hand me downs, yard sale purchases, and furniture rescued from other people's trash.  I probably don't have any aesthetic sense to speak of.  There are ways I prefer to have things look (clutter-free, the occasional meaningful knicknack, etc.) but between being poor and moving all the damn time, I've not yet had a place to really organize as I'd prefer.  So Kid Sparky is growing up amid comfortable chaos.  

I know some things are ok, and others (stupid cockroaches everywhere, the constant accumulation of crumbs) are bad.  I barely have time and energy to deal with the bad stuff.  I should make an effort to have the kid clean up after himself more.  He likes to do it, mostly, just like at daycare, but it takes effort to make sure he does it in an appropriate way.

It's kind of how I feel about minivans.  I am a mommy now.  I have small kids.  Why pretend otherwise?  One day my coffee table will actually have something besides toys on it.  Their childhood won't last forever, so I am enjoying the kid stuff everywhere while it lasts.  Before I know it, I won't have any excuse for the chaos.

She thought we had toy covered homes decorated in fisher-price red, blue, and yellow because it was our aesthetic preference??  Good grief.  Refusing to accommodate the child's need for a kid friendly space makes about as much sense as saying, "Poop?  No thank you, I don't like the stuff and have decided against changing diapers."  

Well, the co-sleeping one definitely went out the window.  I never understood before having a baby how much sense it made NOT to have to actually drag your body out of the bed in the middle of the night.

As far as decor is concerned, ours was never all that fantastic to begin with (who has the money in their 20s to have some kind of all-Pottery Barn or better decorator house anyway?).  I look forward to the day when we can have a decent house, as well as to the day when we can just go out to dinner any place if we feel like it, spur of the moment, or out to the movies if we want without having to worry about getting a sitter.  Having a kid who's 7.5 already though means that while that time point is in the distance, I have a growing realization that it actually does exist; there is a light somewhere at the end of that wonderful tunnel we're in.

If you still have a "perfect" home when you have young children, you are not meant to be a parent.  Is that harsh?  Maybe, but it is realistic.

When you have children, THEY are members of your family.  As such, their things belong, too.  Are all YOUR things in your bedroom?  Of course not.  The sofa, the coffee table, etc. are in the living room.  Why should that room be only to YOUR liking?

As I have said before, many who have children have them because it is expected, you are SUPPOSED to want children.  BS.  If you don't want children, and all the "mess" and color-uncoordinated stuff that goes with them, don't have children.  If you do, you won't worry about living rooms, kitchens, etc. that have toys, etc. in them.  Although, I worry about adults who go bonkers when a child's toy CLASHES with the color scheme.

One of the reasons I love daycare is that since DD is out of the house during the week, our house doesn't have to look like a daycare.  

There is evidence of her in every room (books, toys, stuffed animals, plastic dishes, parked stroller), but it's not the full blown plastic explosion that our SAH/nanny friends have.  

Don't get me wrong, the house is only clean when the cleaning lady comes, and it isn't "decorated", but we do have grown-up stuff that we like and a high chair that looks good with the kitchen.  

--R

I always knew that my house would evolve into kid toy chaos, and always kind of hoped that it would - kids are messy when they're engaged in the world! I can't stand the clutter at the end of the day, and hate cleaning up after even more, so I actually took Erin's advice when she mentioned the three-bin system (I guess around a year ago, now?) and have thinned Jess's toys down and cycled them around.

The one thing in our favor is that the house has a primary color paint scheme - one red wall, one blue wall, and yellow in the staircase. I love it because the colors are strong, but well coordinated (I've got a red wall in the study and it keeps me motivated; the blue walls are in the bedroom, which feels restful, and the yellow staircase reflects the natural light from the skylights!). So actually, most of Jessica's toys blend in well. Of course, now we're moving into the pink-and-purple-and-sparkly stage...

my house is a wreck and it's not always the kids' fault.  

1. I will use cloth diapers

2. I will make my own fresh baby food out of fresh organic veggies

3. I will NEVER let me kids watch t.v. or eat candy.

4. I will never take my kids to Toys R Us

Those are the top four rules I had, the first two I broke right away.

Dominic and Mia don't watch too much t.v. and I didn't allow Dominic to watch any for the first 2 1/2 years. That rule has also gone out the window. I do monitor very closely what they watch, much to the dismay of my two step kids, but they've gotten used to the rules (we only have two tv's in the whole house so we have lot's of negotiations).

I'm very proud that my kids have NO idea what Toys R Us is so I don't have to worry about them freaking out every time we pass one on the freeway (like I used to). :)

As far as the toys? We have a small toy chest that we keep in the family room/kitchen area. The kids toys are everywhere, but we've still managed to decorate our home and keep it nice in spite of all the toys.

My Abuelita gave me the best advice. She basically told me to keep my house how I wanted it and then teach my kids to do their thing around it, basically to not touch things (easier said than done). They do pretty well considering one is 2 and the other is 4; I have no major breakages to complain about. My grandma's house was always full of little porcelain figurines EVERYWHERE - even with 12 grandchildren she never moved a thing.

but when they were younger they took over the house with all their crap. I did not care what the place looked like, but my husband was a nightmare (an obsessive neat freak). He insisted the toys had to be placed back in the toy chests in a certain order. Give me a break! We fought over where the damn plastic balls were supposed to go, as if that mattered to anyone.

With three girls and a large extended family, our problem was the sheer quantity of toys and clothes given to us on what seemed like a weekly basis. Arbor Day? Here's a toy truck. St. Swithin's Day? Another white teddy bear. It was ridiculous.

All I can say is to hang in, they do get older and you will get your house back -- in 20+ years!!!