Picking Up Toys

For those of you who know me well, you know that I am a little obsessive about having the house picked up. From early on I have tried to teach the kids to pick up their toys. Up until they were about 18 months old we would let them get out whatever they wanted and then we would try and do a major clean-up of toys before bed. This method did not work for us. It was a constant battle to get them to pick up toys and the kids and I would end up frustrated while Ryan was left to calm us down. :) Since the time of meltdowns, we have been teaching the kids to put one toy away before getting out another. This has always had to be done with prompting, but there is much less frustration involved.

Today was a milestone of picking up toys in our house. Lily and Wyatt were reading books and playing with tractors. Wyatt decided that playing with his tool box would be more fun so he went and got it out of the toy room. He held it up to me and I said, "Sure, you can play with that." I didn't say anything about the other toys because Lily was still playing with those. The next thing I know, Wyatt is stacking all the library books on the bench in the living room and putting his tractors in the toy bin. All by himself! No prompting! It made this obsessive Mommy proud! (And his sister didn't care because she was trying to get in on playing with the tool box.)