No Hiding It

There is absolutely no doubt a child lives in our house. The older she gets the more of a mark she makes on each room in our house. Remember how I said I kind of give up on cleaning? Well, Cati is part of the reason. She is a little terror and leaves a trail of destruction wherever she goes. She loves to scatter things around and, while she is good at helping me pick up, she thinks picking up is a part of the game called Mommy Picks Up-Cati Scatters Again (and again). Then there's the issue of not having a lot of storage space so we don't physically have space to pack things away. As it stands, our garage is a storage unit and I don't like to put certain things in there because I hate the musty smell things acquire if they've been in there too long. Let's take a little tour of the house so you can see what I mean:

Bedrooms: Cati has her room which is always in some kind of messy state. Our room is an extension of that mess seeing as Cati loves to bring her stuff into our room. I move everything back to her room but she loves the back and forth. The one thing that's a permanent fixture in our room is her basket of diapers and wipes.

Bathroom: We only have one bathroom in the house. The main reason I don't like this is because this is the bathroom everyone uses and our sink is a pedestal sink so all our toiletries are out in the open (our things are in decorative boxes, but still). The bathroom floor is usually full of things Cati has pulled out of the boxes. When she isn't making a mess of our toiletries she is having a party in the tub. She has a bubble machine (have I told you how obsessed she is with bubbles? She wakes up asking for them!), a frog faucet cover, three bath books, and three rubber duckies.

Living Room: Our living room is the room you walk into when you come to our house. In one corner you have Cati's birthday decorations. I'm just waiting for the pictures from the photographer so I can print them and make my scrapbook/photo album of the event. Once I do that this corner will be cleaned up. In the other corner of the room there are bags of Cati's old clothes. I bought those space vacs and the clothes is already organized. All I need is a vacuum.

Dining Room: You have Cati on the wall and under that you have Cati's high chair. The chair is usually full of food. It's kind of amazing how much food doesn't make it into Cati's mouth and instead ends up on the seat or on her butt. Perla loves the high chair and she already knows to hang our underneath it when Cati's eating.

Kitchen: The toy on the fridge is a birthday present and Cati loves to press the button for the music so she can dance. She also likes to take the pieces and carry them around to the other rooms. Then, we have a few of my favorite pictures of her on the fridge.

Family Room: We have dubbed this room the playroom. In this room we have a playmat on the floor and the majority of her toys. Normally the big toys are lined up on the the mat while the smaller toys are stored in a basket next to the Jumperoo and a basket in the shelf. When Cati's in the room, however, everything is taken out of it's place and the floor is littered with toys.

Our house is very much a work in progress. I love that it is filled with things that represent Cati. I just hate that I am always cleaning up. I also hate feeling like we have already outgrown our house.