Toddler Dormitory

I am one of those women who loves to re-arrange our household furniture! I get tired of looking at the same arrangement, and I am always thinking up was to live more efficiently in the space we have. Our team-full of children certainly give me plenty to work with, as they are always growing and developing, and encouraging me to redo the bedroom space.....at least that is the excuse I am using! So, we spent this past weekend re-arranging a couple bedrooms to make way for growing kids.

Until now, Jersey #5 has been sleeping in the crib, in our master bedroom. We tend to keep our babies in our bedroom until they are sleeping pretty well through the night, with minimal wakings. (I don't handle sleep deprivation well, so it is safer if they are close to my bedside versus me walking sleepily around the house with an infant in my arms). We don't usually go a full year like this, but we've been much more casual with Jersey #5, because he is a much more casual baby.

This weekend, we decided to move him to the bedroom that Jersey #3 & Jersey #4 share. Our bedrooms are currently divided by age, not gender. I also got the notion to go ahead and move him to a toddler bed, instead of the crib. Our children tend to be very active in their sleep at night, kicking, squirming, and rolling all over the bed. We tend to move them out of the crib around 16-18 months old, because the crashing against the crib rails wakes them up in the night. I don't know if it is because Jersey #5 is so much bigger than his siblings were at this age, or if he is the most active sleeper, but he has been crashing against the crib rails for a couple months now. So, he is our youngest child to move out of the crib. I was only waiting until he could safely climb onto and off of the toddler bed....and he started climbing before he started walking!

Jersey #5 loves his new bed. He naps there with ease. He woke twice a night through the weekend, but rocked back to sleep easily. For the first day, he sat in bed and cried when he woke up, until we went to get him. Now that he realizes he can get out of bed on his own, he gets down and plays, or comes to find us when he wakes up. He enjoys his new independence...greeting us with smiles and giggles!

Here is a picture of Jersey #5 napping in his bed...

His toddler bed is a hand-me-down from his brother. We lucked out that it happened to be a Cars-themed bed, as we were using Cars toddler bedding in his crib (crib bedding is crazy-expensive, and it is the same size, so we use toddler bedding instead) Jersey #3 has Thomas the Train bedding, but we could not find a Thomas bed at the time the toddler beds were purchased. Our crib converts to a toddler bed very easily. Since it is higher off the ground, and a little larger than the toddler beds we have, we opted to use it for Jersey #3. So, both boys moved to a "new" hand-me-down bed! Our little princess (Jersey #4) sleeps in a princess-themed toddler bed, with Elmo bedding, because that is just the way she rolls! (When given the choice as to what was her favorite, she could not choose just 1 theme).

We set up the bedroom with beds along one wall, and toys along the opposite wall. The line-up of beds reminds me of a dorm. So, this bedroom arrangement has been jokingly called the "Toddler Dormitory"!

Food & Finances Friday--Purge the Junk

I have been on a mission this summer--a mission to purge the junk from our house. We have a lot of junk. We've been caught up in the materialism mind-set, along with the fact that we are pack rats. That is a dangerous combination...we buy it and keep it along time...and that adds up to a lot of junk!

I joke that I am a recovering pack rat. A few years ago I decided that all of this stuff in our house was cluttering up the place, and was cluttering up our finances, so it was really unnecessary. I suggested to my husband that if we purged most of the stuff from our house, it would be much easier to clean and care for, freeing me up for more important and enjoyable activities with the family.

Last summer I met a family whose home was destroyed by flood. As I listened to them describe that experience, it dawned on me that they had to run for their lives with just the basics of life...their health, and a change of clothes, and a handful of their most prized possessions. They inspired me to start thinking about what was most important in my life. If my home was flooded, or if we died today, how big of a mess of junk would be left behind to clean up? Suddenly, all that stuff did not seem as important.

Shortly after, I met a couple who was taking a leap of faith and going out to the mission field. They were leaving behind their nice home, job, and social life, to work for the Lord in a much more desolate environment. They spoke of yard sales and getting rid of most of their possessions, only packing and hauling the very basics they would need to live. I was impressed!

I have been inspired to go through our entire house and purge every room and closet of all that unnecessary stuff. I am not quite ready to live in the mission field. Thankfully, I am not dealing with a flood or a natural disaster. I am able to clean out the clutter from my life, and free myself up to enjoy the more important things. I value time with my family, outings, activities, and birthday parties! I do not value cleaning house or complaining about the clutter and junk left out all the time. I have let go of my packrat tendnecies, and I am starting to focus on what REALLY matters to me. I am much happier for it!

Then, in perfect timing, I started listening to a CD of Dave Ramsey talking about how to dump debt. He says "Sell so much stuff the kids think they're next. Name the dog 'Ebay'!" I was inspired to hold a big yard sale by the end of this summer, after purging our entire house of junk. As my husband and I cleared and purged, we would quote Dave Ramsey to each other, and laugh. It worked! We emptied a drive-way full of stuff out of our house, and sold it in a big yard sale last weekend. Towards the end of the day, we were practically giving the junk away. At the very end, we loaded up the rest and donated it to a thrift store.

Nothing came back into the house!