“When you have kids, things will change!”
I heard someone utter those exact words a few weeks ago. I just don’t know if they said on a positive note or a negative one. Anyway, I totally agree with the statement. Things do change a lot when you have kids. For one thing, forget about your museum-like home because it won’t last. What you need to do is expect the inevitable … Mess!
How do you define mess? For me, it means “Much Energy? Simply Smile!” Yes, kids are messy. They have tons of energy to ‘redecorate a room’ in five seconds! To ‘survive’ parents should do three things – breathe, smile and start picking things up!
Well, actually there are other tricks you can do to have a stress-free, child-friendly home. These tricks boil down to one word –SIMPLICITY!
- Hide and Hide: Remove and put all breakable stuff in wooden cube furniture and hide them from your kids. Put the furniture with your treasures in a room where kids are not allowed to enter. Your home may look bare, but that’s okay. When you have guests and the kids aren’t around you can showcase your stuff again. Remember what is more important – your kids safety!
- Produce a Freedom Wall: Kids love to write on walls. To solve this problem, you have three choices: First, tell them to stop. It may work for a few minutes, but eventually you will see some doodles on the wall again. Second, ban all permanent markers from your home. Hopefully, you will never need them yourself. And, third, reuse the back part of paper calendars as writing tool. Stick them on walls and let the kids have a ‘freedom wall’ to draw or write on. The bigger the calendar paper, the better. Once the paper is full, disregard and put up another paper.
- Eat and Wash: Most kids love to eat while playing. Unfortunately, they also wipe their hands in places where they should not. Like what? The expensive curtains! Ever saw hand prints on them after mealtime? Well, the only solution is to use cheap washable curtains in your kids eating area. Make sure you have two or three sets so you can change them any time.
- Recycle: Cleaning after every meal is time-consuming. Moreover, food stuff all over the floor is the last thing mothers would like to see. One way to solve this problem is to let the kids eat outside the house. In short, weather permitting; let them have a picnic in the garden! If that is not appealing, then use the old newspapers trick. Before serving their food, spread out old newspapers around and under the kid’s table. After mealtime, roll up the newspaper and throw them out.
Remember, kids don’t see mess as mess. They see it as playing or having fun! Don’t smother them with a lot of rules! Forget the mess and just have fun with your kids!
