Superwoman!

As you traverse the blogosphere, have you seen the "Tackle It Tuesday" posts? I have, and they make me feel guilty and overwhelmed all at the same time. I feel guilty, because I don't participate and overwhelmed because I want to. The reason I haven't ever participated is because by the time I tackle teaching first grade to my daughter and then tackle keeping the house from looking like a whirlwind just blew through or a group of hogs has made its stinky, muddy home here, I barely have the time or energy left to tackle putting a decent meal on the table. I mean, who wants to read my "Tackle It Tuesday" post about how I swept under the kitchen table 4 times that day?!

Before you think I've lost my mind, I'm writing this post to brag about something I tackled (and actually completed with minimal interruptions) today. I cleaned my daughter's room!

Now you really think I've lost my mind, don't you? You're saying, "What's the big deal? I clean my daughter's room all the time." Or better yet, your saying, "My daughter cleans her own room all the time."

Yes, my daughter is required to clean her own room on a daily basis, but somehow the mountain of toys in there just continues to grow and grow. It must be because it is piling up on top of every piece of artwork she ever drew, every worksheet she ever brought home from Sunday School and every single sticker anyone has ever given her. And while I'm on the topic of mountains of toys, can I just say that the girl has more than enough toys! I agree with Lara Gallagher when she says too many toys make it hard to teach a child to clean up after herself. (If you have children, this article is a must read. And Lara's blog is fun to read too.)

So, I finally decided to move that mountain, and here are the pictures to prove it:

Here is the before. I want to point out that I'd already taken a mountain of
stuff off the shelves on the right before I thought to take a picture. So this is
just a foothill!

And here is the after. Notice how most of the toys are on the top shelves
out of reach of my daughter? While I agree with Lara, I just couldn't
bring myself to throw it all out yet. So, I placed it out of reach and will
rotate the toys around when needed.

My daughter's room is not the only tackling I've been doing this week. I've already tackled my son's room and the master bath. (Don't worry, my child's education is not suffering. I'm just pretending to be superwoman, because we have guests coming to visit next week!)