Organized

Here's a newsflash. I suck at organization. I have never been a tidy person. Growing up my parents and I had numerous fights over the state of my room. At school I could never keep my desk or locker clean. And, at work I'm constantly reminded to tidy my office or tidy my desk.

So, it comes as no surprise that I can't organize my house.

Don't misunderstand. My house is clean. Our dishes are washed and our bathrooms are clean. But when it comes to organization ... we suck!

I hate a messy house, but I just can't get it together. It drives Mike and I nuts. And his issue - he microorganizes. So, he'll have every single dish lined up in the right direction but step over piles of clothes. Really, it's a huge battle for us. And, the battle gets worse since I'm home from work right now and see the mess all day.

My big fear is passing this disorganization gene on to our children. It seems as though we have. Matt has no interest in tidying up. He loves having his toys spread out. It's been annoying me though, so off I went to Ikea to get an organization system. And I put it together (which took me 2.5 hours). Both Matt and I were dreading the cleaning. But can I tell you how much fun it has been? Seriously.

We've been sorting through all the toys and sorting has led to all sorts of discoveries. We found the complete train set! We found all his Cars toys! We found missing trucks! Life has been great. And, through it all we've been getting organized. Slowly organized, because every time we find a long lost toy a new game begins. But, I'm trying to remember that this is the whole point. I'm trying to teach Matt that it can be FUN to have a place for everything (and everything in its place).

And who knows, maybe it will spur me on to organize my stuff or come up with some great system for sorting all my kitchen containers. My real hope in life is that since I didn't manage to find a husband who likes organizing nor did I manage to have a child who likes organzing, perhaps the nanny we've hired will have some sort of organizing gene and whip our family into shape!

She Rolls!

Chloe has been trying really hard these days to flip over. She grunts and groans and reaches and then gets stuck. It's been comical and frustrating to watch. And so cute.
Unlike Matt, Chloe doesn't scream and cry and get frustrated. She just kind of lets it go and smiles at us.
But yesterday, with much encouraging from Mike and I, and the dangling of her favourite little octopus, Chloe rolled. It was adorable. I loved the look on her face - total pride. Of course I got out the video camera to film my Olympic gymnast in training and she wouldn't do it for me. I turned off the camera, and over she went.
This happened several times. And she would look coyly up at the camera and smile. It cracks me up. I tried again this morning. Same thing. What can you do?
Because she accomplished this Olympic feat at about 10pm last night, Matt was in bed. So, when he got up this morning we put her on her little playmat and let her perform. Matt was pretty excited, and then decided he should teach her to crawl. So, he sat right next to her and kept showing her how to get from her tummy to a crawling position. The scary part? She watched and copied. She couldn't get going, but she did manage to get into position and she managed to move backwards a bit.
As cute as this is, I'm most definitely NOT ready for 2 mobile children. Matt is whirlwind enough. But 2? Scary.
So, after attempting the crawling we went out and got a baby gate. We need several, but we started with a gate for the top of the stairs. Next we need to do the bottom of the stairs and we also want to gate off the kitchen. I'm pretty sure we have a little time. And I'm also pretty sure that I am TOTALLY SCREWED.
But, yay for milestones.
Gymnastics here we come.