Blocker Boys On the Go!

     I know this is scary news, but the winter season is coming with all of its holidays. Holidays bring gifts.  If you have kids they will inevitably receive toys.  Now I have been informed that no self respecting grandparent would not send a toy as a gift.  Believe me we have received plenty of toys from grandparents.  We even get toys for random visits through out the year silly grandparents.  In general my kids have so many toys they will never be able to play with them all!

     So beginning this week we will start the massive toy culling at our house.  The toy collection must face a major reduction before the gifts start arriving.  Also in the realms of gift giving we will be getting ready for K2's first birthday next month.  Just one more opportunity for more toys to come in to our house.the amount of toys we keep will be based on what can fit in the allotted space in the boys room.  Currently we have toys in the living room, and the boys bedroom which is driving my crazy.

     I will admit I do have a weakness for books.  My boys love to go through their books and look at the pictures.  I hope this carries on as they grow up.  We are one of those crazy families with no cable or satellite television.  We do get Netflix, but are cutting way back on our TV watching.  My weakness here would be the Disney movies. So with those two weaknesses I think bookshelves should solve the problem.  I will just have to limit us to the number of books and movies that will fit on the shelves.

     The dreaded Happy meal toys.  I have to say we do get fast food kids meals on occasion, and they come with the pesky toys.  I do keep a few of the small noise free toys in my purse for out and about play time.  I can't even count the number of times these little toys have gotten us through the check out line and into the car quietly.So our happy meal toys will be reduced down to the few toys that live in my purse.

     Stuffed animals.  We receive a few a year.  thankfully we only have one box right now.  However due to downsizing, and up coming holidays we are looking to get to half of a box.  The plan is to go to the box and remove the bottom layer.  Most of the time my boys will only play with a stuffed animal for a few second, and then it goes flying across the room.  Both boys have two or three stuffed animals that you will see them play with on a regular basis.  So we will be keeping the toys that are visibly used every few days.

     Moving on to the bigger toys.  We have two toys that basically do the same thing.  you drop balls in one spot and watch them go down a track.  At the end this triggers music to play.  My theory is to get rid of the bigger one.  This should make room for the totally awesome train set that I found on sale earlier this year for my toddler.  My fear with the train set is all the pieces of track.  I have devised a plan already.  Upon emptying one of our cubes that currently gets occupied by happy meal toys and other miscellaneous small toys the track will be stored in there.  I plan to find a smaller box to keep all of the engines and car in separately.

     After all the culling is complete my plan will enter step two.  All toys will be cleaned and move to the garage.  Then a by appointment sale will be listed on craigslist.  I really do not want to clear and entire Saturday for a yard sales that is my solution. I will schedule a few appointments from Friday evening until Sunday evening.  I can schedule the appointments around things I know we nee to get done as a family.  On Monday what ever is not sold will be taking a trip down to the local charity donation box.

     On another note I am happy to report that our clothes clean out is going well.  All of the kids clothes have been separated and stored accordingly.  All of K1's clothes that were to small are in space bags awaiting K2 to grow in to them.  All the the things that K2 out grew are in the laundry basket awaiting their division into boxes for Thred UP listing. For more about Thred UP please see our post Clearing Out the Kids Clothes.

 WARNING: Do not read any further if you do not want to hear about potty training type information.  This post includes poop, pee, and frustration.   



     My dear 2 year old is going to drive me off the deep end with this venture.  We started with the typical 3 day training plan.  I stared at his crotch for hours, and we ran to the potty all day for 3 days.  That worked for a bit he would run screaming to the potty after awhile, and there was no mess to clean for a few days.  He began to falter so we added M&M rewards for pee, and little toys like a new matchbox car for a poop success.  Our poop success ratio was very low.  I mean this kid must love pooping in his pants.  We finally got to about 2 weeks with an excellent potty record.  I for one am overjoyed.

     This triumph was however short lived.  I have tried everything I can think of to get him back to where he was.  Now days he just sits where ever he is  and tells us after he pees that he "Pee bed" or whatever may be the case.  Friday and today have me climbing the walls with frustration.  For the first time in 2 1/2 years he has decided to play in his poop, and put it on the wall.  So as to not encourage the behavior by getting upset I remained calm, and placed him in the shower to contain the poop.  Now add to the factor that my nearly 11 month old is every where and into every thing.  Now I have to catch and contain the little man before I can even begin cleaning the poop.

     So now I am asking for advice.  What do I do?  I am terribly tempted to just put him back in diapers, and throw my hands in the air.  This has been over a 2 month battle already.  Am I just rushing the process?  I knew when we started that even when he was doing really well we would still have occasional accidents.  Should I just take a few weeks off, and start all over?  Help I am grasping to the last threads of my sanity here.

     I have received some suggestions from mom friends, but they do not really fit our military life style.  My husband is gone at least twice a week for around 40 hours at a time.  I do not have the ability to just hand him the baby and devote multiple days to potty training.  Our first attempt at the 3 day method was over a holiday weekend when my husband had a rare 3 days off.  Now I know there are plenty of families that have similar situations that are not in the military.  So please give me all of your tips!! I will try anything once in this case. Thank you for reading this much of my insanity.