Toys Are Us

I used to pride myself on having a pretty tidy house. Granted, I've never had an abode as stylish and coordinated as my sister (her place looks like an interior designer finished it out for a photo shoot for Better Homes and Gardens)...but still...my apartments and homes were always nice, and clean and cozy with all knick-knacks in their appropriate place.

No more.
My home currently looks like the local Babies R Us is using it as a big storage unit.

I always had a sneaking suspicion that the baby and his "stuff" would slowly take over Casa Rough...more so, I think, than my husband, who looked at me like I was crazy when, while I was pregnant, suggested that we might eventually need to turn the guest room into a play room.

"Why do we need that?" he asked. "He'll have his room to play in."

I sometimes wonder if Jim still feels that way. As I do a walk-through of our decent-sized home, I take quick stock. The baby's nursery is filled with baby things...as it should be.

But there is a colorful green and yellow bouncy chair in the office, a pak n play in our bedroom, a plastic whale bathtub and Elmo towels in the guest bathroom, a high chair and a Bumbo seat in the dining room, bottle parts all over the kitchen, and two diaper bags, a carseat, baby laundry and a box full of too- small-infant clothes sitting on the barstools in the "man" room (that's what I call the open space where Jim keeps his very large pool table.)

And that brings me to the family room.

Our coffee table is currently serving as a shelving unit for a quilt that matches Scott's crib bedding, three pacifiers, a fuzzy toy and a soft book. There's a jumperoo next to the couch, a second quilt on the end table and a big red, black, white and green play mat, complete with a half dozen toys, sitting smack dab in the middle of the floor. Oh, and did I mention the Fisher Price television, the Baby Einstein DVDs and the age appropriate stuffed animals that have also taken up residence nearby?

Scott is starting to feel better, which means its time to break out his bevy of toys.

In short, Scott, in less than five months on this earth, has managed to completely take over every square inch of this house. Christmas didn't help. The kid got enough toys in the span of 48 hours to outfit three daycare centers.

Some of the toys Scott got for Christmas. His stuff is taking over our house.

For a while, I would dutifully pick up all his baby gear at the end of each day, folding burp cloths and receiving blankets in neat little stacks, returning toys to the enormous toy bin in Scott's nursery. But it's losing battle, and I am officially throwing up the white flag.

Scott: the house is all yours. We'll build you a storage unit to hold all the "stuff" you'll undoubtedly get for your first birthday.