Reclaiming space

With three children and a golden retriever we do what we can to keep things simple in our 950 square foot home. Before family, I was single, living in cabins in the woods working out of outdoor education centres and camps year round. I lived out of a bag - so keeping things minimal is a familiar place. I enjoy the simplicity of having little to choose from when it comes to clothes. I don’t want little bitty things to manage and take care of. The ease of living in a cabin in the woods allowed me to practice minimal living before I even knew it was a thing.

When all the toys and clothes and kid-dishes and bits and pieces started filling our home when our first child was on her way - I felt the niggle of discomfort. I pushed it away to make room for what seemed to be pregnancy crankiness. More things came in…I folded and organized and placed. The niggle of “ahhh this is WAY too much” returned…so even before our daughter arrived, I started the process of letting things move right back out.

Stuff takes our attention - and I need as much space in my mind and home as possible to be my best as a parent, friend and partner.

(The dog wants me to mention that I’m a better dog walker too when I’m not flustered and distracted around all the clutter.)

As parents we also define ourselves by what we bring our attention and presence to. This is easy to forget when daily life feels more like triage. By eliminating some of the clutter in our lives we can concentrate on what we really value, not just what we're buried under, or deluged with.

Kim John Payne

My intention here is to keep these blog posts simple and direct - quick reads - to share some of the ways we do things and why. Our home is not always instagram post-perfect (no I don’t use insta even though there’s an account), but the toys are quick and easy to clean up, the kids play well and on their own and our “stuff” fits in our home.

And yes, I would love to let go of even more…but until then - a few tips around keeping toys simple.

Create or Join a Parent-Cycle / Momcycle Group

Cycling groups online keep toys, puzzles and clothes moving out of our home that we are no longer using. This keeps things fresh and exciting for our children as new toys come in. Keep your storage unstuffed (or keep no storage at all!!) by passing toys that are no longer age appropriate or interesting. If you have more than one child know that there will be plenty of toys out there when you are looking for them.

Cycling toys in “collections” is a great way to do this (photo is a real image I used to post to a cycle-group). I will gather toys together and put them in a bag and give the whole bag away labelled “Toy Lot - Take all”. If you really get your cycling group working together - by the time you need a new lot of toys, it will be there.

We also have an “ISO” (in search of) post in the group so families can share what they are looking for - and it’s one of my favourite places to inspire me to let more go if something we have is just sitting around.

A great size for a group like this is 30-50 families with children of varying ages. It can still work with bigger groups - and creating community around this is an added bonus!

(Buy nothing groups are also a great option!)

Less Toys means more imaginative play

…which means more quiet time for YOU! Ok fine, more time to do laundry or drink a coffee hot…but truly - more time when the kids will simply play on their own is good for everyone!

We keep only a few toys out at a time. I do have some toy storage in our small “linen closet” in the hallway that includes some open-ended-all-ages toys that we have invested in such as Grimm’s Rainbow Stacker, wooden blocks with living edges, an Ikea train set, Grimm’s Grampats, Schleich toys (collected from kijiji and marketplace!) and a Buddha Board. I will rotate toys out every few weeks or months or when the wind blows right. Otherwise, these toys rotate through our Momcycle group as above.

Examples of toys that rotate in and out:

Train tracks and trains, some blocks and some animals

• Large Letter Cards, rainbow stacker and some animals

• Some silks (we get them from thrift shops in the scarf department), a deck of playing cards and some blocks

• puzzle, blocks, rainbow stacker

• Grims Grapat Set (we have four kinds) was out before our baby started reaching and putting things in his mouth. It is currently put away until the mouth phase is over.

• paper and 5-10 crayons (dog eats crayons though and baby likes to draw on walls currently so they are also put away)

• stacking bowls, wool balls and two silk scarves

• collections of items they have found outside such as small (yet not too small for baby) stones, sticks and some bowls

• lately the wire-bead toy is out all the time as it has become a way for my oldest son to figure out math (how cool is that?!) and the baby loves it

There are some great books out there like Simplicity Parenting that describe how to go through your toys and create a great collection. Our children do play for long periods of time without any guidance and they have made up some amazing games! We also have some large motor skill toys in the living room which I will describe in another post. The large motor stuff is stored under the couch and out of site but accessible to the kids if they want to integrate them into their play.

Use baskets for quick toy and book clean up

Our children are (at the time of writing this) 8, 4 and 18 months. We have two baskets in the living room- one for toys and one for books. When it is time to clean up, the toys can be easily thrown back in the basket (sure, make a basket-ball game of it!) and the basket can then be tucked back in the corner. Currently we have large Duplo blocks in the basket (from our Momcycle group) with a few animals. We keep one theme of toys in the basket at a time. I will rotate out as needed every few months to keep things fresh.

The kids usually wake up before us in the morning (baby keeps sleeping though) and one of my favourite things lately is waking up to the clink clink for the Duplo in our family room. We are greeted with new creations almost every morning. Sometimes my husband will leave them a pre-created surprise on the carpet at night to surprise them in the morning. There are a few plastic animals in the basket right now too which get integrated into their play too.

Clean up takes less than 3 minutes - unless they make a game of it.

Is this good for the kids??? Or me??

As I shared above, this started out because I was not okay with the amount of clutter and mess when it came to toys and stuff (with ONE KID before she was even born!!)...and with the addition of a child (and then two more) our space was shrinking. The space to rest, breathe, think and be for me as a mom is really important - it’s the first thing I now pay attention to when I feel cranky and impatient - it’s usually because of clutter. There is tons of great research out there about the impact of clutter on women’s mental health and I felt so affirmed reading that I’m not the only one.

Expecting my children to be responsible for clutter or managing a huge collection of toys and books has not worked (I’ve experimented). If all the toys are out on the floor and spread everywhere - no one is in the room…which is another clue to me that they too are affected. Facilitating a space where things are easily put away and where there is room on the floor to create and play has allowed us to have a relaxed home. Creating habits that are EASY and age appropriate around toys and clean up has worked well for us. Baskets mean that even our 18 month old gets in on the game of putting things in their place.

Going back to my roots of camping and living small with only what we need was one of the answers. Practicing gratitude and working with the gift of “letting go and trust that the universe will always provide you with what you need” has been an important part of our kids’ journey - but that too is another post for another time

Keeping toys minimal means easy clean up, way more imaginative play and we are all still centered most days...which means it’s good for ALL of us.

Stay tuned for more tips over the summer of 2020.