Making our home more of a "yes zone"

I've been working very hard on making our home a "yes zone."

I should rewind. I've been reading, "Raising your Spirited Child." One thing the author recommends is to make your house more of a "yes zone" rather than a "no zone" to help with the daily struggles. I believe Dr. Sears may have touched on the same thing in "The Baby Book" when talking about baby proofing and reducing conflict between yourself and your toddler.

Basically, it means massive baby-proofing. For us, that means purging the clutter. I've been working hard on cleaning off shelves, tops of dressers, piles of papers, reorganizing things to make room to store stuff I don't want the little guy to get into or that are cluttering other space (used canning jars on the counter, for example).

This has been good for me, I think. In the past year that both of us have been working, we accumulated A LOT of clutter. Neither of us had the time, or when we did have the time, we lacked the energy and motivation to deal with clutter. Well, now that I'm home, I'm living with the consequences of our not dealing with clutter. Piles of papers for the little guy to throw across a room, lots of little things we just set up on a higher shelf and forgot about are being discovered by fingers exploring new heights thanks to a recent growth spurt.

The first couple of weeks at home were filled with a lot of frustration on my part because of constantly having to tell Elliott "no". No, don't throw those papers. No, please don't dump that basket of clothes I just folded on the dirty floor. No, don't pull the nails out of the wall. No, don't pull that pile of junk off the top of the dresser.

I'm nowhere near finished with this process. I've made progress, but it hasn't been easy. I spend most of my time at home picking stuff up and putting the away. I'm a whirlwind of activity when Elliott naps. But I think it's starting to pay off. The downstairs bathroom is less cluttered than I've seen it in months. The dining room table, while still covered with stuff, is looking cleaner than it has in awhile. The half-wall between the kitchen and dining area is amazingly uncluttered. A basket of "stuff" cleared off shelves and from the top of dressers is taken care of (mix of Goodwill, trash, recycling and "find it a home immediately").

I expected this process to help calm the daily storms between Elliott and I (and it has helped, definitely), but I didn't realize what it would do for me. It's amazing how much BETTER I feel seeing clutter take care of, eradicated, abolished. SO, SO, nice!

Anyhow, that's what I've been working on. We're busy, Elliott and I seem to have stuff to do almost everyday. It's been fun and I'm excited to feel like I'm finally getting a chance to catch up with the mess the last year of chaos did to our home.

The office is still a wreck. We've just been shutting the door. But I think that will be my grand finale. Believe me, you'll see a big WHOOSH of relief from me when that room is clutter free. Now the real trick is keeping those surfaces clear... JUNK. Where does it all come from? Really?