Girls’ Rooms Reorganized! (Insert Sigh of Relief)

Thank you all for your concern and support during my recent difficulty handling the state of my daughters’ bedrooms. (Click here if you missed that so-embarrassingly-sad-it’s-funny post.)

On the last day of school, I headed home and started tackling Maggie’s room. It had only been a mess for about a month, and wasn’t too hard to get under control. One decision I made was to move her CD player (purchased for the nursery before Frannie was even born, and extremely handy for bedtime lullabye routines) to her low table where she can access it and play her own music. (There are two current favourites in rotation: Natalie MacMaster “Live” and 100 Best Songs For Children).

Then Frannie and I dove in to her disaster area…and by 7:00, neither of us having eaten, but only half done our daunting task, we decided to call it a night. (Half done meant half a movie before bed. My girls are very easy to bribe.)

The next morning it took another hour and a half to get everything organized. The final results:

Once everything was cleaned up, dealing with Frannie’s art and writing was actually much easier than I anticipated.

On my previous post, someone suggested a website where you can turn a large number of pieces of artwork into one collage (see photo below) but the prices START at $ 750…more than I’m willing to pay, when a binder will do the trick for now. Frannie was surprisingly unsentimental about her random pieces of paper…I think trying to decide what toys to donate was a much more difficult task…but you know what, she did a good job with that too, and several bags went to the Salvation Army. I kept some of the best pieces of artwork, and a few pieces of writing (which she loves to do while Maggie is napping in the afternoons).

I HAF LOVE! I HAF YOU I HAF A FEMALE! {family, not female} AND FRES! WHAT DUW YOU HAF? DAD SES I HAF FRANNIE AND MAGGIE! MAGGIE SED I HAF CYUWT PI! {stuffed animal Cutie Pie} MOM SED I LOVE DAD GREMU SED FLAWRS GEPU SED BCS

(Apparently she really does take after her mother, as she used an abundance of punctuation, but not a period in sight! I mean, in sight. She also takes after her grandparents, who love flowers and books. You figured that out, right?)

My other favourite story (just to continue to test your ability to decipher the writing of a five year old):

I EM NOT HPE
IT IS GU TO RAN
THE DOG BRCT OWT
MI MOM COLD OWT TO ME
COM INSID HNE

I DID SUM HWMWRC
IT WAT AT THE WNDO
IT STOPT RANIG
THE SUN CAM OWT

Brilliant, no?

The ultimate reward for the girls was a new colouring book from Michael’s (Frannie had her eye on a Star Wars edition) and imagine my surprise when I made it in to the store to learn that it only cost a buck. Can’t beat that for my peace of mind (strange though it may be), which was my ultimate reward.

Next up? Tackling the storage area under the basement stairs. You gotta love “holidays”.