Amy vs America's Housekeeping Book: kids' room.

The boys' bedroom has forever been the bane of my existence. It's ALWAYS a mess. Always. 

Wally loves boxes. He makes them into robots and cars and fighter jets

And rocket ships. 

And then he insists on keeping them forever. They eventually get thrown in recycling once they've been smashed up and forgotten about but there are still several members of the fleet in active duty. Which means his room eventually looks like the receiving area of a grocery store. 

Real time shots and I'm impressed that there are only 3 boxes in there. 

I deal with the boxes because I actually love his engineering skills. They will become very valuable when he gets old enough to have his own Pinterest account. 

But I'm dealing with toys and toys and boxes and toys and toys. Everywhere. 

I have been off the charts lazy today and haven't even made the beds or cleaned up the bathroom. But I have not stopped thinking about the kid aspect of this book and since the room might just be a portal to the stock room of a Toys R Us, I can at the very least check out what the book advises I do to keep the kids' room in order. Did I mention how much I adore this book and its values????? With the exception of saying boys don't want "a sissy room" it's pretty on trend. 

Speaking of "on trend", this book invented Pinterest before you even heard of it, okay? 

It's fascinating and heart breaking at the same time when you realize why they had to be all hipster Pinterest. 

In case you are not aware of what was happening to American households in 1943- a little thing called WW2 was happening. All over the world, men were at war and women were working. And shoes went on ration in March. 

So they saved and reused EVERYTHING. My grandma still to this day washes and reuses ziplock bags. She's probably still using the ones she bought in 1986. 

Hipsters.

So having order in the house was probably even more important to them then we even realize. 

And finding cheap and free uses for things was just how it was. Good thing I found this book, then. I'm broke. 

This era was possibly the defining moment for women, that silent rumbling that there was more to scrubbing the tub and having a perfect house and quiet, clean kids ready when your husband got home. The rumbling that got so loud that women eventually were socially accepted to go to college. (I saw that on a Quantum Leap episode, so you know it's true). 

I went to college and now I'm a really bad  stay at home mom who dreams of being a really good homemaker. But it's my choice, and for that I tip my unwashed mom bun to those ladies that came before me and did it so much better than I ever could. 

Alright, my vow is to tackle this room today. Maybe I could build some of this with old scraps laying around. 

You laugh now, but I think I could do it. How hard could it be? I'll just look it up on a Pinterest diy board. 

First I've got to get rid of some boxes.