i'm drowning in post christmas!!!! can't.take.it.anymore.

[crunchymum]

:hissyfit :banghead :hissyfit :banghead :violin :crazy2 :crazy :pacing :bag

:(

my house is seriously out of control. i want to sit in the middle of the floor and cry like a 2 yo... and the kids got SO MUCH stuff from people, where does it go? and the baby is due in 6 weeks, and, and, and.... :cry2


i feel like so much of my hard work has gone right down the terlit. :cry there are projects that i know will help the situation, but dh has to do them, and he's, ahem, not. and i'm just getting over being sick.

where do i start ladies?? i feel so lost....

[/vent whine]

[KatieMae]

:hug2 It's overwhelming to all of us to find homes for all that new stuff after Christmas & being so close to adding another baby in your house must make the stress so much more :hug2

Your hard work in the past hasn't been for nothing though - hiding under all those new things is the clean house you had on December 24th :yes Just start with something that won't take too much time & will make the biggest visual impact. Maybe you can move everyone's gifts to their own bedroom for a while so you can find your family room & kitchen. Then try to incorporate those things back into your living space (as much or as little as you want, of course!)

You can do it :cheer
(and make the kids help ;))

[tempus vernum]

:hugheart You can do this.

One thing at a time. What I recommend you do is box everything up and shove it under a bed :shifty. Desperate times, desperate measures. When you feel better and up to it, take out a box at a time and ask the kids to help find a spot for it :hugheart


:hugheart

[mom2threegirls]

:hug2 I understand! I feel like that almost every Christmas (and after all the birthdays are over, since the girls birthdays are all within a month of eachother). I'm sure adding a new baby in 6 weeks to the mix is making it a LOT more overwhelming, especially after dealing with sickness :yes2 :hugheart. I can't imagine- I'm :crazy just imagining!

Is all the stuff the kids got stuff they really care about? Anything you can take back? Can they get rid of some of their old things to make room for the new? I've always tried (that's the key word ;)- I don't usually manage to do it completely but every little bit counts!) to get rid of old stuff when new stuff comes in. If it's all stuff they want to keep can you put some of the less important stuff in storage for now until awhile after the baby comes and it's easier to deal with (or just get rid of it then if no one is missing it!)?

:hugs You can do it! :cheer

[crunchymum]

thank you, all, for the hugs. *sniffle*

hiding under all those new things is the clean house you had on December 24th

well.... it wasn't really clean then, either... :blush



One thing at a time. What I recommend you do is box everything up and shove it under a bed :shifty. Desperate times, desperate measures. When you feel better and up to it, take out a box at a time and ask the kids to help find a spot for it :hugheart




see, that's part of the problem - 1) we have no bed right now (sleeping in the guest room on a tiny mattress... long story :blah ) and 2) we have a LOT of boxed up stuff...lots of boxes... stuff from our phase 1 of organizing. they've been shuffled here and there, waiting for dh to finish building a built in shelving unit so we can shift everything and find places for it. i'm so tired of looking at white legal boxes!! in the meantime, everything tends to fall into chaos around them. i feel like we have way too much stuff, but i think the real issue is that there's no place for it and no system in place right now. i'm about ready to build the darn thing myself, but i know i can't. :pacing

there are a couple of areas in our house that my friend steph was able to pretty much *finish* with me while she was here - those areas are doing pretty good, in general. :yes but she had to leave while we were in the middle of the rest of the areas in the house (meaning, we had touched on each area, gotten them started). i'm a good starter, what i need help with is the finishing, kwim? so i've sort of been floundering. :blush

i may do the boxes under the bed with the kids stuff right now, though... but i keep thinking long term - we just can't keep everything! and the two monkeys are *convinced* the *need* everything... :rolleyes i've already got quite a bag of give aways, plus we recently boxed up a lot of their toys and put them in the garage for awhile. i am trying to get them to get their room in order, and there's been lots of tears today - i don't blame them, though, one look at the disaster that is their room and *i* want to run screaming, i can't imagine how overwhelming for them. i feel like banning christmas next year! :shifty

today i feel like dh when he says "let's just bulldoze everything out of the house"... i just want a peaceful, free environment to enjoy my family in! :hissyfit

[klpmommy]

:hugheart

and I thought I was married to the King of "I'll do it later". What has worked for me when I get to that point of desparation & I know that if dh would just do/finish the job he planned it would be a huge help--- I start talking to him about shopping. I am being serious, not passive aggressive (I don't think :think ). I will talk about how I know how busy he is & so for now I can buy a cheap shelf/drawer set/whatever to do that particular job until he has time. And it nearly always works to get him to do the job if he really has the time. If he doesn't have the time he is usually able to work out a different solution.

I still need to take down my tree. :bag

[tempus vernum]

I have asked dh "can you be done by ______ (insert date) or should we shop for something? I don't want you feeling pressured." I don't think that's passive agressive. :no I would DEFINITELY do that especially in your circumstances. :hugheart

Praying Jen. :pray4

AFA all the stuff. I talk A LOT to my kids about the children who have less than themand can we come up with things to bless them. SOmetimes it helps, sometimes I sneak in the middle of the night and toss stuff without them watching :hiding

[crunchymum]

yeah, i confess to secret tossing... :shifty (and our tree is still up, kimberly! :lol )

hmmm... i think giving him a "do by" date would be good. :yes he likes sticky notes, maybe i'll post stickies of what needs to get done when. :think interestingly, when *i* start doing jobs i've given him to do, he usually starts going on stuff - the problem is, i'm almost out of stuff i *can* do... the things left involve tables saws, power nail guns, and morter. and paint. (though i have a mask i can wear, so maybe i can do that).

ok, so i put a dent in some of it. the room we are sleeping in is ok right now and i'm working down the hallway. dd is having a meltdown right now because i'm making her fold and pu away her clothes and get her toys together. ds is *not* having a meltdown, but he's not doing his work, either. :rolleyes

[klpmommy]

dd is having a meltdown right now because i'm making her fold and pu away her clothes and get her toys together. ds is *not* having a meltdown, but he's not doing his work, either. :rolleyes


are you at *my* house watching *my* kids "clean up" toys right now? :lol

[tempus vernum]

yay :woohoo you CAN do it!!!!!!!!

[The Tickle Momster]

Good for you! :cheer For me, it's getting started each day. If I just get up and get moving on stuff, it usually gets at least a little better.

You can do this! And I think the sticky notes are a great idea!

[Amber]

:hug2 I just told my dh the other night how I feel the need to seriously downsize the amount of stuff we have....especially the kids stuff :shifty Now I just need for him to come alongside and help me.

Oh, and I am guilty of sneakily tossing toys into the yard sale box when the kids aren't around or are sleeping :shifty

[cindergretta]

Before we moved, I would lie in bed at night and fantasize that the house would burn down. :blush I didn't want to lose everything, but we were in such a tiny space and had so much stuff, where was it going to go?!?!

So we just moved and :ptl the dc didn't get tons of toys and such for Christmas. They got giftcards and small items, easily stored, kwim? :phew

What we *did* do in the course of preparing for the move was throw away just a ton of stuff. And we donated just a ton more. I can't believe how much we got rid of b/c we were "under the gun," so to speak.

Then when we made the actual move, we got a bunch of big Rubbermaid tubs and sorted all the toys into them. Two-thirds of the toys on are huge shelves in the garage and 1/3 is in the house. We will rotate them every 4 mos. Just a lot less to deal with at any given moment! :-)

For me, when I am overwhelmed and feel like everything is out of control, I pick something finite to do- laundry or clean a bathroom. Something where I can work until it is done and feel like something is accomplished!

:hug2 :pray

[crunchymum]

ok, so dh got home from work and i asked if he would do the shelves this weekend (shelves makes it sound like no biggie, but really it's a built in piece of furniture - it lines our dinning room windows and you can sit on the top of it. underneath is supposed to have 2 levels of shelves, and the things that are going there are: school books/supplies, crafts/sewing supplies, dvds and videos, and photo archives. you can see why it's so important to me!). he signed up to help our neighbor with his kitchen floor, though, so he said next weekend. :tu good enough for me! if i can get the risers painted tomorrow, he said he *will* put the carpet runner in on sunday. :phew that would be great!

i feel a *little* better. most of my laundry is done, that makes a difference. :yes and i talked to dh about him being in charge of the main floor for a couple of weeks while i concentrate on the upstairs (which is the scary scary part right now), and he said "don't worry about the main floor, i got it." :rockon

now i have to hunt for a bed (or at least a mattress) for our bedroom... that has to be priority because my mom is coming to help around the time of the birth and we will need to vacate the guest room. :shifty we sort of need to hire an exterminator before we do that, though... :shifty so everything needs to shift like a rubic's cube, kwim?

thanks for the encouragement! and thanks for letting me get this out. :heart i was seriously losing it this afternoon... i still am at a loss afa the kid's stuff, but i think it will feel less overwhelming if other areas are ok. i at least have 1 room now i can go in that's not disaster so i can feel ok in it. :phew

[crunchymum]

whoops, just saw the replies!

Before we moved, I would lie in bed at night and fantasize that the house would burn down.

oh, i totally relate! :O thing is, we *don't* live in a tiny space! it's like too much house, and so inefficient!

For me, when I am overwhelmed and feel like everything is out of control, I pick something finite to do- laundry or clean a bathroom. Something where I can work until it is done and feel like something is accomplished!

:yes that's what i did, i do feel so much better. :)

[Havilah]

Before we moved, I would lie in bed at night and fantasize that the house would burn down. :blush I didn't want to lose everything, but we were in such a tiny space and had so much stuff, where was it going to go?!?!


:hug2 :pray


lol. We've daydreamed about putting Me-Ma's dining room table in the front yard and torching our house. Do you think the firemen would be suspicious? :shifty

We're right there with you on the post-Christmas chaos. It's awful, and we've been grumpy about it all week. Not quite grumpy enough to do much about it, though. I think we're just overwhelmed. :bag