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Babyproofing gone crazy

3/1/2016

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Image by Crista Ballard Photography
This article was originally published in the March 2016 edition of 605 Magazine. 


​It recently came to my attention that my house was a giant booby trap for a crawling baby.

You see, they say when your baby begins crawling, it is of utmost importance for you, yourself to get on all fours and view your house as your baby sees it. So, I did it. I got on all fours and crawled around my house looking the fool while surveying the situation. To my horror, it seems that every square inch of our dwelling is fraught with frightening frights of danger.

So, I placed our baby boy in what our older daughter calls “baby jail” (playpen) and I got to work. But as I slaved away, time started to lose all meaning and I found myself stuck in a mixed vortex of cleaning, organizing, and babyproofing. I became…overwhelmed. I would get distracted by an old picture or an old book. I would pause. Reflect. Then forget what I was doing. So, then I would drink a cup of coffee, change a diaper, play with my daughter, and then start again on the babyproofing. By the end of the day, after what felt like days of “work,” I got down on all fours again to see what I accomplished.

I had placed covers on three electronic outlets in our livingroom. That was it. That was all I had to show. I could see the conversation now, “Hi honey! What did you and the children do today?” And I would point excitedly to my three outlet covers. “Babyproofing! Ta-da!”

I needed help. Guidance. Or, a personal assistant. Or, my mom. None of which were readily available.

I think I’ve mentioned before that while I’m wildly creative and studious, my ability to properly run a household (i.e. polish silver, meal plan, organize, wear an apron, dust, clean, etc.) are wildly lacking. Just ask my husband. He will (gently) tell you this is true. So, after this failed day of babyproofing and cleaning and many countless frantic days running around looking for a shoe, a rogue piece of paper, what have you, I knew I needed to learn to be a better steward of our belongings.

I had been seeing around the interwebs lately a “method” of organizing and tidying and apparently it was changing people lives. So, I bought the book that allegedly taught this method. I’m such a sucker for methods. The book is entitled Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up. It is author Marie Kondo’s follow up to her holy grail of house organization book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

Spoiler alert following! The major premise of the book is this: Discard anything in your home that does not bring you joy. Sounds easy, right? But as I began to delve into inner workings of this method, I found it is very specific. There is an order to order. And while a little of it sounds a bit hokey-pokey (she advocates that you say “goodbye” to the items you are discarding and thank them for their service -- Um, that is weird Marie Kondo), the specific method she teaches is genius for someone like me. She says that to begin to tidy, you first must discard/purge. And you purge in this order: Clothes, books, papers, miscellaneous items, and then sentimental items. You do not so much as make eye contact with anything outside of the category you are working on in order to make 100 percent use of your time and efficiency. From there, you can tidy, organize, and store your entire house in the same order. When you are done, she says you will create an entire house that is filled with joy.
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I have to admit, I was a skeptic. My whole life my belongings have been a wee bit…chaotic? And I never thought anything about it. But now that I have two humans depending on me, I started to realize it was making me feel crazy that I never knew where anything was. Getting my preschooler ready for school was like a code red military operation. Getting all of us (on time) to any place was practically a joke. But since implementing some of Marie Kondo’s method, I have to admit, it is joyful to be organized. I go into my closet and stare in wonder at the order. If you ask me where my daughter’s ballet shoes are right now, at this very moment, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt where they are. That is a miracle, folks. A springtime, miracle.

And my baby no longer has to be in “baby jail.” He is out, roaming free in the house. So, at the risk of sounding like an infomercial, I am astounded by this organizing method. And to all you type A people out there reading this and going, “Duh!” I hail you as chief. Because I am now a tidying believer!
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A Messy Life 

3/1/2015

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This article was originally published in the February 2015 edition of 605 Magazine. 

I like to think that I have strong life skills. I like to think that I am a survivor, a conqueror, and an overall go-getter in life. However, there are days when I step into my house, survey the situation that is my entirely unorganized home and question all my life skills while wondering how I was ever authorized to run a household.

Household and general life organization has never been my strong suit. In fact, it is probably my weakest suits of all my suits. At the workplace, however, somehow it is a different story. My offices and desks were always extremely organized, my computer work files were layed out so intuitively Curious George could navigate them, and barring the several coffee cups that would somehow proliferate in my work area, for years no one ever knew my dirty little unorganized secret …

That is until I had a child.

You see with a child, you always have to be organized and prepared. Preparedness wards off disasters. You must be prepared. And up until this point in my life I was able to skirt by with just some minor infractions as a direct result of my my tendency to be unorganized. (You know, like an occasional missed flight, lost keys, a lost parked car, unmatching socks, a boarding pass flushed down the toilet on accident, a phone flushed down the toilet also by accident, a perpetually lost phone, a dropped wallet in a parking lot, an expired drivers license etc.). But, when a child came along, organization became paramount to survival and sanity. So, I stepped up to the plate and upped my game and somehow we got through the infant years with no major disasters.

But lately, something has gone back to being seriously awry with my household organization skills. Is it too late to blame y2k?

A couple of weeks ago, I was taking my daughter to swim lessons and of course we were running a few minutes behind. So, I grabbed her swim bag and searching high and low, went to look for her swim towel. After several excruciating minutes, it finally came to me that I wasn’t going to find a swim towel in the several piles of unfolded laundry located in various rooms of the house. Then, I couldn’t find my shoes. Then, I couldn’t find my daughter’s shoes. Then, I couldn’t find my purse. Now, we were really late.

So, I just tossed whatever I could find in the car and off we went hoping a magical towel would somehow appear at the end of the lesson. But as you can imagine, a magic towel did not appear and there I was staring at my shivering child, realizing I had absolutely nothing to dry her. But my inner Macgyver noticed a napkin in my purse which I used to wrap up a cookie that I would later use for bribing purposes (I mean, seriously, aren’t I an excellent parent?), and I took said napkin and dried her tiny body off. Then, to my delight I found fresh, dry clothes in my bag and quietly thanked God that somehow I had the foresight to at least pack dry clothes.

Celebrating my ingenuity and success, I completely forgot about the dreaded towel incident. Unfortunately, my daughter did not. As we arrived home, she ran to my husband and like a tiny little spy told him flat out “Mommy forgot my towel and used a dirty napkin to dry me.” To which he looked looked at me slowly and repeated “You dried her off with a dirty napkin?”

It was a low point for me. Yes, I did. I dried my daughter off with a crumb infested napkin. And sadly, dear husband, I can’t promise it won’t be the last time.

You see, I have come to own my unorganization. I have gotten better in some areas, but for the most part trying to be organized exhausts me on every level. I like flying by the seat of my pants, and I thrive in chaos. Yes, I may have a mountain of unfolded laundry at every given moment worthy of an elevation number, I will lose my car in the parking lot once a month, and  you would be lucky to find two matching socks in my sock drawer or a swim towel at a moment’s notice. But, at the end of the day, my goal this year as a mom is to own my strengths and my weaknesses, improve where I can, and throw in the swim towel where I can’t.
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