Living with Claire

My sweet little baby girl has a big problem. The problem is that she is a walking hurricane. Claire has the ability to make a mess faster than anyone I know - well maybe with the exception of her cousin Chris. She tends to make these messes when you are busy doing other things. Not things that take a long time, short things like changing Grant's diaper, getting laundry out of the dryer, getting dressed, etc. These messes can also be overlapping meaning that there are multiple going on at one time. She does not clean up one mess before another one is created. Sometimes they even run from her room, down the hall, into the family room and around through the kitchen. I have photographed a few examples for your viewing pleasure:

Example #1: The evil scissors! Whenever Claire can get her hands on scissors she cuts things up into confetti sized pieces. Then the pieces are carried around and dropped from room to room. I started putting the scissors on the kitchen counter out of reach, but she figured out how to bring over a chair and get them down.

Example #2: Random collections of things. Here she has collected books from her room, pictures from the end table, and miscellaneous other items and placed them on the sofa and ottoman.

Example #3: The front door. This picture was taken after she walked in the door from school. She always drops her lunch box, sharing item (the camera this day) and her shoes just inside of the front door.

Example #4: The play kitchen. She dumps and plays with the dishes and food constantly. She usually has some type of tea party set up on the table. This area is always messy despite my best efforts.

Examples #5-6: The play dishes. As shown in these two pictures, the play dishes are played with and strewn about the house. She plays tea party with her dolls or whoever else will play with her.

Example #7: The dress up bin. Ugggghhhh. She loves to play with the dress up clothes, but she often empties the entire bin wherever it may be. In this case she pushed the bin out from her room and emptied it looking for something very specific.

I am working with Claire to clean up her messes, but she usually says that it is too hard. When I finally tell her that I am going to take away the items that are left out she will agree to clean, but only if someone helps her. I am certain that if she was left alone for 10 minutes she could and probably would have every toy out that we own. However, Claire is quite creative and loves to play make believe. We just need to figure out to tame some of that free spirit.