"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
12/05/2014 at 11:46 • Filed to: None
5
14|
"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
12/05/2014 at 11:46 • Filed to: None | 5
| 14 |
I getting the massive crates of Christmas decorations out of the attic, hauling them down the fold-up stairs in the ceiling. If you don't hear from me after 15 minutes, please call an ambulance. The front door is open.
Update : I survived. Barely.
Jcarr
> ttyymmnn
12/05/2014 at 11:50 |
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BoulderZ
> ttyymmnn
12/05/2014 at 11:55 |
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Oof, good on ya. I just did exactly that on about Wednesday. Amazing how awful those fold-down stairs seem once you take on a 40# Rubbermaid tub for payload. Safe until the reverse operation in January...
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ttyymmnn
> BoulderZ
12/05/2014 at 11:59 |
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How about FOUR tubs? See that little red box on the bottom at the right? The first year my wife and I were married, we put all of our Christmas decorations in that box. What you see now is what 20 years of marriage does to your decoration collection.
XJDano
> ttyymmnn
12/05/2014 at 12:02 |
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I'm headed to my uncles house tomorrow to do the same.
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BoulderZ
> ttyymmnn
12/05/2014 at 12:03 |
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You are in good company, my friend! I also had a total of 4 tubs (please tell me you at least did them one at a time...), and a couple small items. 17 awesome years of marriage here. Neither of us is too much of an accumulator, but we're finding being in the same house since 2001 means we really have to consciously fight the clutter. Stuff will quickly build up almost of its own accord. Reminds me, I might try to go get rid of two extra bike frames for some cash today...
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ttyymmnn
> BoulderZ
12/05/2014 at 12:10 |
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Any kids? We've got three boys, and we're waging a losing battle against the clutter. It's a small house, though. And no, those bins were added a year at a time. But we could easily put the contents of the three small boxes into another crate.
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ttyymmnn
> XJDano
12/05/2014 at 12:10 |
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Be safe!
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BoulderZ
> ttyymmnn
12/05/2014 at 12:49 |
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1 boy, just turned two. We're just starting to move out a lot of the baby clutter. With three, I have to imagine the fight against clutter is nearly impossible, achieving "critical mess" just due to volume and influx. The bins do just kind of show up over time, don't they? I've had a couple of crate-consolidations work out poorly, where it turned out the smaller boxes were better due to weight; combined in one tub it reminded me of high school jobs moving bags of cement and installing hardscape.
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ttyymmnn
> BoulderZ
12/05/2014 at 12:57 |
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Our boys are 11, 9 and 9. Yes, twins. Our house suffers from CHAOS: Can't Have Anybody Over Syndrome. You should see our garage....
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BoulderZ
> ttyymmnn
12/05/2014 at 13:04 |
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You got me to laugh out loud, thanks! Twins... double the kids and the square of the work, right? Sounds like fun in a lot of ways, though. One thing that helps our clutter situation is we have no family even in our same time zone. This has reduced the toy/heirloom/stuff avalanche that we expected with the first grandson on one side and the only grandson on the other.
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ttyymmnn
> BoulderZ
12/05/2014 at 13:08 |
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As I'm fond of saying, "I planned on having two kids, instead I got two more." We don't have any family in the same time zone either, but we've still got 12 years of toys laid in. Thing is they just don't play with toys. It's all video games. I'm going to get a big crate and just dump everything into it and see if they even notice.
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BoulderZ
> ttyymmnn
12/05/2014 at 13:17 |
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Heh, I know of a lot of people that got a late twin surprise, more common than I'd guessed. That's a good approach with the crate idea. We do keep a very few obvious cherished toys, or something with particular meaning. The others, we keep a few out at a time in what we call the Probation Pile. If he doesn't play with them inside of a couple of weeks, they go straight to the donation boxes. My brother's family does a big thing with their two girls, either after Halloween and before Thanksgiving, or right on the first of the year, where they go through all the toys and clothes and separating them in to "keep, donate, hand me down" piles. They set some pre-determined limit to any long-term keeping, like "your three most favorite toys", and really push the importance of donating and sharing. Seems to help/work. Of course, that's a family of 4 in a 2BR, 1 BA, maybe 800 ft^2 place, so they don't have a lot of choice about it. I'll be interested to see how the video games thing goes. My kid doesn't even dig TV too much so far, maybe an episode of Thomas, and then he'd rather play trains or "hot cars" or go ride his bike. Hard to tell what they'll be in to as they age, though.
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ttyymmnn
> BoulderZ
12/05/2014 at 13:21 |
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I miss the Thomas days. I used to build truly elaborate tracks (I never had enough switches), and my older boy always wanted to put every. single. car. on the track. You had to push them one at a time about an inch at a time. I would play trains with him while his brothers were sleeping and invariably fall asleep on the floor pushing trains. I wouldn't say that boys getting older gets any easier. It just gets different.
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BoulderZ
> ttyymmnn
12/05/2014 at 14:18 |
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Indeed, the challenges change and evolve, as do the rewards. That's definitely some kind of toddler/preschool thing, putting all the cars on the track. We're looking to get him a couple of cars and engines and know we'll need more track. Thanks for the heads up on switches being the limiting factor, too!