I have set a limit of four days on this:
It’s been three days and today I gave warning. The Stuffed Animal Utopia of Bliss must be dismantled by tomorrow night.
“But the animals will be so sad.”
“But you set up every toy, stuffed animal, laundry basket, block, doll blanket and interesting-looking household item we own in a mess-like pattern in the living room.”
“But it’s so much fun.”
“But the living room’s the first thing people see when they walk into our house and it looks like the toy room vomited all over my entry way.”
Blank stares. Squinty eyes. Cocked heads. Looks that say, “And that’s a problem because?”
The Utopia is coming down tomorrow.
If you’re “mean,” I must be the Wicked Witch! 🙂 Good luck with the dismantling efforts.
Ours looks like that sometimes except…it’s mom and dad’s fault.
Here’s what you need to do: Get a simple playhouse consisting of four walls, a door and a window, and teach them how to play “Smother”. Your stuffed animals will stay nicely contained inside the playhouse and the kids learn great survival skills. If you want to know more, just ask. 🙂
Good luck with that. There may be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. But such is life.
It seems like they get their bedrooms, the playroom and the familyroom, surely as the mortgage payer, you should have some space to keep as you like it. Right? Maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
Oy – my tolerance level is shorter than yours. I can usually only stand it for about two days. Mine have been on a jag lately of pulling all the dining room chairs into the family room and draping a little play parachute over it. Yeah – it makes a great little fort, but IT FILLS THE FAMILY ROOM. Argh.
Four days is pretty generous! At our house they have the time it takes for me to vacuum their room and the hallway and anything left on the floor in the front room goes into the time out box until the next day. It works wonders. In my defense, I am a slow vacuumer. ;o)
It must be something in those kid genes. My girls do the exact same thing. It drives me bananas.
🙂
My four year old loves to excuse her messes or questionable activities with the justification “But we LOVE to ____” (fill in the blank). Interesting logic. If only life worked that way. Or not.
What ZaCarrie said 🙂 Truly a wonderful game.
If she refuses to clean it up tomorrow, you could bring out “Grumble Bag”, who eats toys that don’t get taken care of. Except that my kids would just stand petrified and screaming in fear of the giant green laundry bag, so that didn’t work so well for us.
Best of luck.
By the way, I just noticed the sidebar photos. Priceless.
My long-suffering mother often let us take over the living room with elaborate set-ups–often they were “towns” for matchbox cars or Fisher Price Little People. We loved it, and I love her for letting us do it. But four days is a good limit.
LOL! Our living rooms look like this a lot! It’s the sign of an imagination! However, I have to agree that after 4 days, it’s time. I say the same thing to my kids and it’s like I’m killing them. What? Clean up our creativity? Clean up our doll school? Clean up our doll church? How dare I? 🙂
I often fall prey to the “feelings” of the stuffed animals too. Lately, when I get grief about cleaning up I say “that’s okay honey, I understand. Just pick up the things you want to see again and I’ll take care of the rest.”. It works like a charm!
Dude, stop posting pictures of my house.
4 days…you’ve got lots of patience! 1 hour is all I can handle if Utopia was in my living room! But, since my little one is a teenager, I do wish I let his homemade forts in our living room stayed up a little longer.
I love it when it is clean up time and Evan says ” Mommy you do it!” I am always like um no thanks, you made the mess you clean it up.
Oh dear. Well…I could tell you that my house looks like this MANY days and while I relish the fact that my girls use their imagination, I can’t handle the house looking crazy 24/7. I try to appreciate their creativity but then you can put a time limit on it. 😉
I always get the “I’m still playing with it” excuse even it has been sitting for 2 days with no activity!
It’s always such a comfort to me to see that children belonging to other people can create a tornado in the living room as well 🙂 I think that a four day limit is more than generous! Good luck with that!
You’re nicer than me, I would have dismantled it after 3 HOURS!