one little person....

And all of his stuff.  Oh, I am sure it is not all Asa, but it seems that adding one small boy has increased the toys, clothes and general clutter in my house a thousand fold!

I know part of it is that we are still trying to get unpacked and settled from traveling.  I am caught up on laundry and that helps.  And even though the other kids have some idea where things belong, Asa has no idea and when he is finished with a toy, he just drops it and goes on to the next one.  This means that Ezra drops what he has to quickly grab up whatever Asa just dropped, and so on the pattern goes.

We have legos, duplos, matchbox cars, colors, and Thomas train stuff.  Every. Where.  This was the crime scene this morning.  They kept going back and forth between the trains, cars and air guitars.  The inside of the bedroom looks much worse than the hallway!

I think I am going to have to purge the toys again.  At least put a lot of them away. 

And now that Asa is here and I know for sure what will fit him, I can clean out their closet again.  It is stuffed full with all four boys sharing one closet.  Right now it is so full that I can only fit one season of each boys' clothes.  The winter clothes are all in the hall closet, Bethany's closet and tubs in the office. 

One thing that is trying is that you cannot have Asa try something on to see if it fits.  Once you put it on him, he thinks it is his and wants to wear it.  Right then.  And not take it off.  Ever.  I had a pair of Crocs in the closet that I thought might fit him.  He tried them on.  They were too small.  And he was heartbroken when I had him take them off. And I know he'll freak out when Ezra wears them. 

I know it is all related to his security, but there are things that have to happen before he is 100% secure in his feelings.  I have a bucket full of pants that I need to see if they will fit him this fall/winter.  If they are huge, I'll put them in the attic.  If they are close, I'll put them in the closet.  But I know that trying them on will bring on meltdowns and freak outs.  I am torn between my need to clean up for my sanity and Asa's needs, which I think, is that I don't "tease" him by having him try on pants that he might not get to keep (right now).  Oy.

If any of you has any tried and true toy storage solutions, post them here!  Space is at a premium and I would love to have a system that is cheap and easy for the kids to use.