Do you ever just get tired of....

[northernmom2boys]

Do you ever just get tired of hearing your own voice over and over and over again asking the kids to pick up clothes,toys,stuff.Maybe I am pmsing but I think I need a break cause the sound of my own voice is annoying me lol You can actually see a trail as to where the kids have been in the house,I will never loose them cause I just have to follow the trail of stuff lol
I need to clean out that toy room and get rid of sooooo much stuff they dont play with.And to think christmas is only 3 months away wahhhhhhh
Ok I just needed to vent and thank you for reading

[marie_squared]

i dont have any children, but i have two siblings, ages 7 and 11. they spend every weekend with me. friday thru sunday, theyre at my apartment. - my bf and i are living together and sometimes i think that having them over can serve as a "trial" time to see if we (as a team) are really ready for the big step of marriage and children. well.... i can barely stand it for three days. im a neat freak and sometimes its just like... arrhhhhh!!! but. i know its not that bad because they go home after a few days. -- at least school has started right?

[Cricket1]

Yes, I follow trails and yes, I get sick of my own voice. OUr house is on the market right now and I feel like all I do is clean up their messes. Things that normally don't bother me, any me b/c I think it all has to be soooo neat.

[Domestic Gal]

This is called the drop and run technique at our house. Be careful when you come in the front door or you might trip over shoes, jackets, lunchboxes, or bookbags and no kids in sight. They just drop everything there and run somewhere else.

[northernmom2boys]

Thank you all ,at least I am not alone in my mess lol
I am sort of a neat freak so this just BUGS ME LOL
I have realized that with kids you need to give up a little but this constant mess and saying over and over again is driving me wacky

[cheappearls]

I kind of know what you mean. My boys are still young but with my 2 y/o I have to repeat myself a bit. I really hate yelling and after about 5 times I catch myself raising my voice.

Lately though when he does something bad he says "don't throw" "don't hit brother" "leave Kat alone" and he almost sounds exactly like I do. Haha!

But just think about all the hugs and kisses, that's what makes it all worth it. Just tonight when I was hugging Hunter goodnight he says "I love you mama" I about started bawling. It was the first time he had said it without me saying it first.

It almost makes you want to have more, key word is almost.

[Lady_V]

My friend and I have a running joke about having to tell our kids the same things over and over again....
Our kids would be fighting over a pail and shovel... "7"... they go near the bridge "3"... it's that bad... we even tried to brainstorm a device small enough to carry around and just hit the right button... our biggest stump... making it loud enough... lol...

[MOMMYDEAREST]

northernmom2boys- i definetly understand where you are coming from. i'm a sahm with 4 kids, plus we do foster care. at times, we can have up to 6-7 kids at a time. i feel like a broken record 24/7. it erks me so much because all my kids are old enough to pick up after themselves..........with wintertime coming i know i'm going to be yelling alot more with having all the kids inside...............HELP!!!!!!!

[HandyMom]

I did get sick of that problem and the constant whining when I tell DD to do anything. I bought a small voice activated tape recorder (OH YES I DID!). It comes in very handy! I first was going to record myself repeating over and over then instead I decided to record the whining and play it back to her when she starts in on me or asks me to do something for HER! Things have calmed down quite a bit since then and I still keep the recorder in close reach just in case there is some more whining, yelling, screaming or name calling about to bust loose!

[MarshHen]

For some reason, my dd lost some brain cells when she turned 13. She can't process any "to do" commands. I did however get her to keep her room clean by telling her that the fist time I find her room messy, I was gonna come in that night and sleep in the bed with her for a week. It worked!!! I do a daily room check at random times when she is home from school, but I don't mind cause It's cool when a plan works, LOL.

[peanut]

I can't believe how much less work I have to do since dd#1 moved out of home! I thought I had the messies under control here. But when she left I found I had all this time on my hands. It took me awhile to figure out why.LOL It was less picking up, straightening up, etc.

Eighteen year olds don't really leave messes (except in their rooms), but they do use a place and leave it in disarray. The slipcover half on the floor. The pillows on the wrong chairs/couches. Books used for study left on the table. Etc.

When they became tweens I had a deal with them about their rooms. There had to be a clear path to the door and the window, in case of fire, which I pointed out was eminately more likely with the state they kept their rooms in. There could be no food or drink in the room except water...at all times. And they had to do a thorough clean once a month or I came through and did it and they'd never see their stuff again because it was going straight to the garbage. I only had to throw things out once. My tweens got the point.

On top of that, I actively showed them how to clean a room. We piled everything in the middle of the room, sorted it, and looked for homes for things. Some children have a real hard time doing this. DD#1 caught on real quick. DD#2 needed a little guidance. Turned out she did not have the right type of storage for the things she likes to keep. Once she figured it out though, and daddy and I got on the ball with more appropriate storage, she was flying. I came in one day to find out she'd built her own storage unit out of empty 5 gallon water jugs...stacked, duct taped together and the fronts cut out to form a shelving unit!

When they were younger we simply said no TV/videos/fun/games until all your stuff is picked up...and we stuck to it. We did make it fun though. We'd help. I'd ask questions about the toy...where it went and how often they used it.

Sometimes things weren't put away because to get them up and down was an effort requiring a chair or whatever. In short, we needed to rearrange the room/space so their toys were more accessible and easier to take out and put away. So organization on my part played a role in their success as cleaners.

With dd#1 this meant hanging hooks on the back of the bedroom door at her height for her favourite dress-up clothes, housecoat, and other commonly used items (belts, next day's clothes, etc.). It also meant reorganizing her closet so there were 2 rods, with the lower one in her reach. It held her everyday clothes. It meant reorganizing her highboy dresser so everyday clothes were in the bottom drawers and special ones in the top. It meant dh building 2'x2' storage units and bookcases. She could reach into those. It meant a wicker basket for the rest of her dressup clothes. It meant a trunk for craft supplies. It meant...well, you get the point. She received a child sized desk for her birthday and a child sized table and chair set to do projects at. We made bed making easy by just having a duvet and pillow...no blankets to tug at. The storage units were right at floor level, no more than 2' high. Easy to get toys in and out of for a young child.

Yeah, I remember those whining days. And the days I was so frustrated I could scream. But I'll be hanged if I'm going to let some 4 or 10 or 14 or 18 year old get to me about cleaning. There are a LOT more important things in this life than that. So I just solved the problem as best I could and went on to more important things.

[kabin63]

Ahhh, kids are like rabbits, aren't they? Always leaving little droppings everywhere they go. The way I deal with for my DD is to tell her to either pick up it up or lose it. When it comes to her room.....all I have to do is threaten to clean her room and she spazzes...LOL For some reason she thinks it's horrible to have mom clean her room, so I only have to threaten before she will do it.....LOL

[ScrapMama]

I'm pretty tough on my kiddos in the department. My girls are better trained than my boys though. No toys are allowed left out after bed time and you have to put away whatever you are playing with before pulling something else out. I can't stand clutter.