I know, I know summer is almost over… but boy was it way more crazy and chaotic than I could have ever imagined. Who would have thought that a 2 year old and a 10 year old could “argue” so much? To be honest, it really was more the two year old than the ten year old.
Jude is in an epic struggle with the constant need to be “big”. It was such a hard summer with all of the “big” kids running in and out of the house. He refused to take naps and wanted to be right by his brother’s side but yet at every moment he was a holy torment.
Needless to say school is back in and the house has gone from constant ear piercing screaming to peace and tranquillity! Phew! Although summer is almost over I really wanted to share with you how we stored all of our pool stuff this summer. Hopefully, you may use it next year or it may spark another idea for you. Below is a picture of the Vintage Suitcase Storage I made as an alternative to a shelf to store scarves and gloves in a tight space in my laundry room. Well winter passed and we had no need for the cold weather accessories. So we stored them away and brought out the summer fun.
The bookbags and lunchboxes were placed in the baskets on top of the washer and dryer here in my Laundry room. Our coats returned to the “formal” coat closet for storage. In the “tornado closet” I have a large tupperware container for extra winter supplies like ski bibs and this is were I stored all of the gloves and scarves. As you can see towels and pool bags took the place of the coats and book bags.
We are very lucky to have a neighborhood pool and Gavin has a close friend a few doors down who just built their own pool (lucky!). So he swims quite frequently. It’s most important that Gavin is able to get ready on his own and get all of his pool stuff because more often than not he is going without me and with his friends’ parents. I highly encourage creating systems in your home that help encourage your children to become more independent. Not because I’m lazy and don’t want to help my kids but, because it teaches them important life skills.
Here you see that we were able to store sunscreen, (do we have enough?) sunglasses, dive sticks, our pool pass, and water diapers although Jude didn’t need them because he was completely potty trained before summer started. It was so nice to have everything in one central place.
And just in case you were wondering, NO, I am not an organized person. I have to work at it because I get very stressed out over too much clutter. In fact I was a messy child and a horribly un-organized student. As a professional I had to learn organization skills in order to be successful and run a business. (there was no choice anymore I just had to do it)
Lastly, we used the space under the dryer for pool towels, larger water toys, and water shoes. It’s amazing how many towels are actually in there. To the right you can see all of our other shoes are still making it in our shoe bucket, well at least most of the time.
Thanks so much for bearing with me and letting me share a blast from the summer past. We are still using this system and will continue to use it until the pool closes.
So, I want to know are any of you born organizers or are you like me and have to work really hard at it? Give us some tips. Let us know what works for you!
