Like I mentioned, I’m potty training my 19 month old; and although he hasn’t gotten to the point of telling us he has to go, he will hold it until we take him.   The key to no accidents is taking him frequently enough.  This works for me and is way easier and cheaper than changing diapers.

I did a little Googling for tips on teaching a little guy how to tell you he has to go potty.  I didn’t get any information on that, however, my search did come up with a ton of potty training resources, Q&A, and parent comments.  While I didn’t find many under 2 potty training parents, I saw a lot of 3 and 4 year old’s parents asking questions, at their wits end, afraid maybe their child will end up wearing diapers to college.

And I made a startling discovery.
Potty training is largely a lesson in obeying mama’s voice.

I would estimate, based on the stories and comments I read this morning, that about 5% of those toddlers are really just having trouble figuring the whole potty training thing out. 
15% have sidetracked mamas who just don’t remember to take the trainee consistently (I fall into this category).
But a whopping majority, about 80% of the problems mama’s have with potty training their children stem from underlying disciplinary issues. 
“My child just doesn’t want to sit on the potty, and I don’t want to make her”.
“My 3 year old screams when I take her close to the potty”.
“My child takes his diaper off and pees in the corner when he has to go potty”.
“I tried to talk to my 4 year old about the hygienic importance of going in the toilet but he still refuses to go”.
“My child won’t have an accident at preschool but won’t use the potty when we’re at home”.

If a child is refusing to do anything his mother tells him, it is flat out a disciplinary issue. 
And let me be clear.  Refusing to obey is very different from not understanding what you’re being told.  My 19 month old will pee, or at least try to pee, on command – we’ve already passed the ‘learning how to release your pee’ stage. And passed obedience training has already taught him to obey my voice without complaint.  However, he won’t tell me he has to go because he doesn’t understand that process yet.

Not too many generations ago the average child was completely potty trained before the age of 2 1/2.  Now, it unusual to have a child out of diapers before that age.  While diaper companies and psycobabblists do harbour some of the blame for the increase in diaper clad 3 year olds; I still hold to my assessment, wholly based on comments from other mothers, that most children just need proper discipline.

They need to learn to obey mama’s voice.

If I say, “Jesse, it’s time to go potty; come on.”, I fully expect him to head with me cheerfully to the bathroom.  If he fusses, whines, or shows me any defiance at all that is disobedience.

What moms are saying just startled me, is all.  I wonder how much easier it would be for the child if mama was consistent, said what she meant, and followed through with what she said 100% of the time (even 90% will do for most children, but 100% should be our goal).

Instead we confuse them.  We tell them to mind or [insert punishment here] but then do nothing about it when they disobey.  Then, the next day we tell them to mind and then punish them when they don’t obey us. 
How will they ever trust us when we aren’t trustworthy?  How will they ever discern what rules have to be followed and what rules don’t?

And our err in this area is spilling over into every aspect of our children’s lives; into things as fundamental as learning proper toilet practices.

Ladies – Motherhood isn’t this fly by the seat of our pants, do whatever we feel like in the moment operation.

I’m just sayin’.

if you missed the beginning of this series,
read all previous entries in order here

I took some time off from this series because, well, I don’t know why.  I just got side tracked for a month and a half.  It’s not the first time it’s happened.  I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Anyway, we’re back talking about laundry, something I’ve come to kinda like, and today we’re bleaching.

Bleach is one of those things I have mixed feelings about.  I don’t like to use it but the results are amazing – I love the look of freshly bleached white dish clothes all folded and stacked up.

As I said in a previously written post, all my kitchen dish towels are white.  We have large ones for drying, and smaller washcloths for washing the dishes.  Because they’re all white I can bleach them when they start looking cruddy.  I don’t use bleach for much other laundering, and if I do need to bleach a shirt or something I’ll usually save it until I bleach my dish cloths, which is about once a month or so.

Bleaching works best when the items you’re whitening are already clean.  However, because I bleach all our cloths at once I usually have a freshly used cloth in the mix. 

When I’m ready to bleach I fill either a 2 1/2 gallon bucket or my sink with warm water then I add 1/3 cup bleach.  I collect up all the white cloths I can find, pulling the clean folded ones right out of the drawer, and I carefully put them all in the bleach water.  As you may already know, bleach will discolor your clothes in a heart beat so be very careful when working with this chemical.

I usually let this sit for an hour.  I know that may sound like a crazy amount of time but it’s the way I do it.  I get the cleanest looking cloths this way.  However, I’ve found that anything over an hour is overkill and doesn’t make any more difference in the look of my cloths.

When an hour is up I wash my cloths on the hot setting with a small amount of detergent, and hang them on the line in the sun to dry.  The sun often bleaches out any stains the chlorine bleach missed.

And that’s it.

Oh yeah, I still have to fold them and put them in the drawer.

This process not only de-stains my cloths but it also gets any of that lingering dish cloth stink completely out, fully disinfects, and leaves them as white as they’re gonna get. 

On cloth bleach day I also take some time to evaluate our dish cloth needs.  If any are just really nasty or have holes I’ll make a note of it and add new dish cloths to the grocery list.  They aren’t expensive if you get them from the auto section at Walmart.  They have big packs of utility cloths for a relatively low price.  My husband gets the old cloths for his garage stuff, which it appears he never has enough of, and I get to put fresh ones in the drawer in the kitchen. Win-win!

Other things to think about when chlorine bleaching -

• Be careful with your hands.  Bleach will dry them out very quickly.
• Always bleach in a well ventilated area.  Chlorine bleach fumes can be dangerous if you’re not careful.
• Ammonia and Chlorine bleach DO NOT MIX. Be very careful about mixing chemicals.  Chlorine bleach mixed with some chemicals can make you very sick very quickly. 
• Make sure to read your labels.  Chlorine bleach can ruin a nice shirt if you don’t pay attention.
• A bleach spot isn’t a stain.  You’ll never get a bleach spot out.  Ever.  Be careful.
• Tell your kids what you’re doing and warn them to stay away from the bleach.
• Never leave your bleaching supplies within reach of little ones and always train your littles to not touch (we call this house-proofing your children).
• Try the sharpie method before tossing ruined clothes.  While you can’t get a bleach spot out, you may be able to cover it with a matching sharpie.  I’ve done this before and it has worked well in some instances, and not so well in others.  It never hurts to try.
• Bleach does break down the fibers in fabrics.  I bleach my terry cloth kitchen towels for an hour because I know they’re easily replaceable.  I wouldn’t suggest this method for your favorite t-shirt.

There are other ways to bleach things, too, that don’t call for harsh chemicals.  Although I find the results less satisfying, if you only have a little staining you can simply try replacing the bleach with baking soda.  Then, when you go to wash, add 1/4 cup lemon juice to your washer.  Both the baking soda and lemon juice act as bleaching agents.  The baking soda also deodorizes.  This option is great on towels that you want to keep fluffy, or clothes that could be easily ruined by chlorine bleach.

Do you have a special bleaching system?  I’d love to hear how you keep your whites white.

Also, I’m thinking of going with all white sheets for our beds (not including the comforters) and I would love any opinions on this.  I really think I’d like the uniformed nature of it, but is this too sterile?

This past week we have swept through our home and created box after box of items for our garage sale.  It is unbelievable how much stuff we have to get rid of.

Again.

And I got to thinking about organization again and how I like to think of myself as organized.
(we’ll just ignore that I am not, have never been, and doubt I ever will be) 

I read a magazine not long ago on organization.  And I’ve looked up many a website on the same topic.  I often find myself saying, “That’s not organized!  It looks so cluttered and junky!”  Then I get all irritated that nobody seems to understand what organization really is, or how to show me how to achieve it.

But then it just hit me a few minutes ago while I was parousing I’m An Organizing Junkie website that it’s not organization I’m after.

Being organized suggests that you have stuff to organize.  My goal is to just get rid of everything.

I’ve found, since dejunking our lives, that I like clear spaces.  A lot.  And the more junk I get rid of, the more clear spaces I have, the more I crave more clear spaces and I wonder if anybody would notice if I got rid of the microwave. 
“Don’t even think about it!”, my teenage daughter scolds me.

I knew that maybe I’d gone a little overboard when my husband said, “Don’t remove the pictures from the walls.  I like them.  They make the room look less sterile.”

He calls my style sterile.  But that sounds so ‘doctor’s office’.

So I’ll just think of it as simple.

Today we tackled the kitchen.  The kids and I cleaned out the pantry and went through every cupboard; scrubbing, organizing, and trashing.  We created a huge pile of stuff that might just fetch us a decent price at a garage sale.  You know how big those 35 gallon rubbermaids are?  That’s how much stuff I collected from my kitchen cupboards for our garage sale.  That doesn’t even include the full trash bag worth of stuff we threw away.

The funny thing is, just last month I went through my kitchen cupboards and got rid of a bunch of stuff we don’t use.  I wonder how I missed all the stuff that I found today, and why didn’t I realize a month ago that we never really use that thing and I should just let it go.

So I said, “Fly away, little canning rack that went to that cracked canning pot we threw out a while back. Fly away and find your purpose in somebody else’s cupboard!”

Tomorrow I’m going to throw rocks at the stuff in my bathrooms and holler, “Get out of here! Just go!”

It comes in waves, and leaves the same way.  It’s happening more and more often lately, however.

My desire to clean, get rid of, organize, and clean again was here today.  Looking around the living room overwhelmed my senses with a desire to minimize and refresh.  I had Gabe make and fill our spray bottle with cleaner.  We took cloths to the windows, doors, walls, and sills.  We moves tuff around, cleaned behind, on top of, and inside everything. 

I moved and hung pictures.  Re-organized drawers, filled small screw holes in the walls, and vacuumed.

I’m happy with the results.  The living room is done.

Tomorrow we’ll work on the kitchen. 

And I’ll take some window cleaner to the fresh spit marks on the lower half of the window Kait cleaned today.  We have a couple of adorable window lickers living with us.

if you missed the beginning of this series,
read all previous entries in order here

Recently we switched to all white dish cloths; white wash cloths for dish cleaning, and larger white utility cloths my husband picked up for me at the auto store, for drying dishes and counters.   The reason we thought to toss the old rags for an all white option is two-fold.

First, the smell that permeates the kitchen rags in our house is horrible.  Washing them does help, of course, but I can always smell a musty odor in them, even right out of the dryer.  Having all white towels means I can bleach them when I need to - keeping them looking and smelling quite clean.
Second, I like to have seperate towels for hand drying.  Those are colored and my kids know they are not for cleaning or wiping counters.    

While I don’t bleach my dish towels every time I wash them, I do like to give them a good bleaching once or twice a month.  When I do this I gather every last one of them, even the cloths still clean in the drawer, and do one load.  This way not one towel gets missed and I can easily see what my stash looks like and decide if I need to put new towels on the shopping list.  I try to do the bleach load right after the kitchen has been cleaned so there won’t be need of a cloth while they are in the washer.

For some reason, I enjoy taking the time to wash, dry, and fold my freshly bleached kitchen cloths. They are white, smell fresh, fold and stack neatly, and create such an organized looking space in our dish cloth drawer. 

It’s so pleasant and has brought an unexpected simplicity and freshness to my laundry routine.

Do you have a secret for keeping stink out of your dish cloths?  Please share.

if you missed the beginning of this series,
read all previous entries in order here

Specialty loads are actually my biggest hiccup when it comes to keeping laundry under control.  Things like bedding, bleaching, bathroom floor mats, and diapers always throw off my groove.  I’ve really had to work hard at keeping to a routine in this area to keep these things from falling behind. 

Bedding is today’s subject - There is nothing like crawling into bed with the scent of my favorite laundry soap lingering on my freshly washed bedding.  Something so simple as soft washed sheets…  I can’t even explain the comfort.

We have seven beds in this house.  That means seven sets of linens.  Two are crib sized, which I can combine into one load.  But the rest are twins, and my husband and I sleep on a king bed. 

That’s a lot of bedding to wash.

I used to do all our linens on one day each week. My goal in the next month is to get back on a regular weekly linen washing schedule.  I’ve done it before, I’m certain I can do it again.  Not only do I love, love, love the comforting smell of freshly washed bedding as I climb into bed, but washing my sheets weekly does wonders for my allergies. 

Tips that have helped me in the past to accomplish a strict weekly sheet washing regimen -

• Start with an empty hamper. If you’ve have a basic laundry routine down this shouldn’t be too difficult.  I run a load the night before sheet wash day to be completely caught up and ready for all the bedding.
• Get your kids involved.  Much of the laundry load (no pun intended) can be taken off your back by having the kids pull some of their own weight.  Have your children strip their beds down and bring the laundry to the laundry room first thing on sheet washing day. 
• Don’t overfill the washer.  It is tempting when doing a lot of laundry in one day to stuff as much into your washer as possible.  However, if you resist the temptation to overfill your machine you will end up with cleaner, better smelling sheets.  Any job worth doing is worth the time to do it well.  Taking extra care to do reasonable sized loads will pay off in the end.
• Set a timer.  Preferably one that won’t stop going off until you turn it off. This way you won’t forget to move the laundry in a timely manner, and won’t end up with a pile of sheets still needing washing at bedtime.
• Use your favorite detergent.  No matter what detergent we use for our clothing that I might have gotten on sale or free with coupons, I always keep a bottle of favorite detergent just for our sheets. Looking forward to that fresh smell at bed time really does help keep me from putting off the job.
• Have your children re-dress their beds.   My older 3 are responsible for helping their buddies with their sheets.  I take care of the baby’s and my own bedding.   

While this does take all day, it really isn’t time consuming.  Everybody has a minimal amount of work to do and all are pleased with a freshly cleaned favorite blanket.

Weekly sheet laundering might seem like overkill to some people, while not enough to others.  Evaluate your needs and available time and choose a sheet washing regimen that works for you.

How often do you wash your sheets?  Bi-weekly, weekly, monthly, or can’t remember when you washed them last?  Do you have an organized schedule for this?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

if you missed the beginning of this series,
read all previous entries in order here

A few weeks ago I swapped the dinner preparation job with my 15 year old daughter for the laundry job.  Kait disagrees, but I definitely think I got the better end of the deal.  This switch not only relieved my daughter from a job she really disliked, but it has really shown me where I’ve been slacking off in creating and maintaining a smooth laundry routine.

Creating a laundry routine is essential when your goal is to form habits that don’t include letting laundry pile up in front of the TV (which, surprisingly, is where my clean laundry used to find itself). 
Laundry routines start with the people who wear the clothes.  That isn’t just you, but your kids play a role in this, too.

Put a dirty clothes hamper in an easily accessible place.  When you have young children in the home, having one place to deposit spent clothing may be the easiest way to go.  Not only does having one laundry depository make less work for me, but it also helps that I can look in one place and see how much laundry I have to wash.  This isn’t difficult – I’ve trained all my children (the nursling excepted) to put their clothes in one big hamper. 

Choose your laundry days.  I do one load, sometimes two, on an average day.  However, if you can’t wash daily, or simply don’t want to, pick out a few days a week as laundry days.  Getting into the habit of washing your family’s clothing on certain days of the week will take practice.  But with consistency you’ll be surprised how quickly a practiced routine can turn into a habit. 

Sorting your laundry as you go eliminates needing numerous hampers in your laundry area. Because I wash everyday it isn’t hard to sort and wash clothing in one load, towels in another.  The way I sort is a personal choice.  I have found that for me it’s not worth the added hassle of extra loads, to sort out colors, lights, and darks.  The simple act of separating out my towels from my clothing (which is a new habit for me) has made a tremendous difference in the feel and smell of my clothing.  And that’s enough for me.

Finding sanity in doing laundry starts with a simple routine.  Find one that works for you and stick to it. You’ll be pleased you did.

How have you simplified your laundry routine?  Tell us about it! 

Next up: Specialty loads.  Bedding, bleaching, diapers & bathmats

…in the laundry room of all places.

Yesterday I cleaned out our laundry room. It had far too long gone neglected (I really should have snapped a picture). I took a giant rubbermaid in there and loaded it up with junk while little flurries of dust swirled around my already stuffed up head. I then wet mopped everything with a damp cloth.

Then there was clean. Peace. All of the sudden I could breath in that room. I didn’t hate being in there and I felt a surge of laundry-doing energy.

But [sigh] I still had this large rubbermaid overflowing this stuff. I also had drug out another very large box of other stuff we had been storing in the that room. And the library shelves (which are also in the laundry room)…

The work continued.

Thing by thing I went through those boxes. I kept only about 1/3 of the stuff in them. I freecycled that very large box, and the rubbermaid now sits empty in my living room.

The entire room has taken on a different feel.  My kids can now easily get to the board game cupboard - leaving no more excuses for not putting those games away properly and I almost look forward to doing the laundry today.

almost.

If you need some focus or direction today I suggest cleaning out your laundry room/area.  Don’t be discouraged if you can’t get to all of it.  Just start with the area directly around your washer and dryer.  Get your stuff organized.  Wipe down your appliances.  Find spaces for stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with laundry.  Trash junk.  Bless somebody with things you don’t need anymore.

Then maybe you’ll almost want to do laundry too!

How do you keep your laundry area in order?  What do you do with trinkets you find in the washer?

read all of this series in order here

On the heels of some stay-at-home-mom criticism, and the typical “being a stay at home mom isn’t as easy as you think” response, I feel the need to chime in with some truth about my life.

I’d love to keep you believing that my job is hard, that I’m just that selfless, organized and put together. That I have way more energy, or drive, or I’m a better person, or whatever you may think I am.  But really, when you get right down to it, I’m just this gal with some kids and a husband and a giant frying pan.

And, get this.

I
like
it

!

I like it way more than when I worked full time outside the home (13 years ago when I had just 1 kid).
I like the modicum of chaos that is my day.  I like (well after the fact) the humorous oopses.  Like the toilet paper art episode.

I have no desire to entertain any fantasy that has me again joining the work force and leaving my children for somebody else to raise.  I’m not worthless.  I don’t hate learning.  I’m not sitting on the couch eating bonbons watching some soap opera.  I haven’t enlisted Spongebob to babysit my kids all day (what, with no cable TV and all…)

What I am is in that peacful place that comes from doing what I know is right, no matter what different life another would have me live.

It’s okay if you don’t agree. It’s okay because it’s my life  and it doesn’t matter what you think about me.

I have joy here.
Even when whatever it is that threatens you about the way I live my life causes you to show your not-so-pretty side.

And even when I find a steamer in the bathroom trash can.