Do you ever find that you wake up one morning, look around and say to yourself. “Where did all this stuff come from?” More than likely it took some time to accumulate but often we don’t see what’s right under our noses until we’re bumping into it and can hear it screaming out at us “look at me, look at me, I’m taking over your house….nana nana boo boo!” Can you hear it? Is your cluttering taunting you? It’s certainly not passive, I’ll give it that much. In fact, clutter is an attention hog. The longer it takes for you to notice it, the more it’s going to pile up to make you more aware (clutter attracts clutter!). Sometimes it’s not even subtle in how it goes about it either…falling out on our heads as we open cupboards and sticking it’s sly self out to trip us up as we walk by. Oh yes it is a pain in the rear that is for sure.
Today I became aware of a clutter situation in my own house that avoided my radar until I was practically tripping over it in multiple locations. Now as I open my eyes to it, this particular clutter has completely invaded my home. It is mocking me.
It seems, my friends, that Pokemon has come to live with us in a BIG way and from what I can tell it has no intention of leaving any time soon. It is EVERYWHERE! Case in point:
In my son’s bedroom:
In my living room:
On my dining room table:
On my kitchen counter:
Random piles all around:
In the basement (and don’t even get me started on the socks everywhere! Why can’t they just leave them on!)
As you can tell my 6.5 year old is crazy for Pokemon. As with most clutter, I think it started with one pile which didn’t seem so bad at the time but then became another and then another and then another. At some point I must have just turned a blind eye to it or thought in my mind that what I was seeing was just the same pile over and over again…ha! Has this ever happened to you?
So here’s the thing. All these Pokemon in itself aren’t really the problem. The problem lies in the fact that this new found obsession of my son’s has no parameters or boundaries. Once we get those established that should take care of the problem. I haven’t entirely figured out what this will look like yet but I’m thinking since it appears he likes to travel with said Pokemon that I might need to come up with some kind of portable solution. I will also need to put boundaries in place as to where they can be played and what clean up at the end of the day will look like. Then and only then if these newly created Pokemon “rules” are not followed do I have to take greater action. And when I say greater action, I mean take them away to clutter jail to have to be earned back. And by earned back, I mean some kind of great chore that will require work my son will not want to do. Mwahahahahah. Yep I’m one of those moms!
After all that, if I do see that the “collection” is just a bit too much for my son to manage within the boundaries given, then we’ll either adjust the boundaries accordingly or together we’ll do some selective purging.
So you see, clutter can come at us from many different directions and often it’s dependent on what season of life we are in. You are not alone there that is for sure but we don’t have to let clutter win. Oh no we don’t. Show your clutter who is boss TODAY. Go on, I know you can do it!!
What clutter has been creeping into your home lately? And more importantly, what will you do about it?
Christine says
This could be house!! 🙂 I’m thinking of getting some nice baskets – one for the toys and one for the cards and making a rule that says they all go back in the basket before bedtime.
Jill Robson says
Laura I feel your pain, literally, a pain in my foot! Check out the blog i did about my son’s obsession with Beyblade’s. It has lasted a lot longer than his Pokemon phase.LOL
Yvonne B. says
This reminds me of my home except we have a Lego invasion. The main building area is our playroom but the creations migrate to nearly every room.
BTW, I posted a link to your site on my blog. Thanks for all the great tips and inspiration!
Maria Jones says
I love pikacho. the cartoon is so cute.. I wish that would be in real life.
Judy says
My son used to love Pokemon at that age too. He’s 17 now and collects computer parts. (he built is own over summer vacation) The difference between big and little boys is the size of their toys! My clutter is my craft stuff. There’s no one else to blame but me!
Piper says
Clutter is of the “debil” I say!! I feel your pain. Our 7yr old has about 30 squinkies( an they are very little and the little gumball machine plastic thingys they are in makes it all hard to contain … and my sweet mother-in-law made him a small drawstring bag to keep them in! PERFECT!!!
We had a lego issue when our older son was small and they were EVERYWHERE…and BOY do they hurt when you step on one!! We invested in a rubbermaid box that slid under his bed or on a closet shelf!! So now even the younger one knows what to do when he is finished with legos….
Now if I could just figure out what to do with the rest of the clutter….?????
Don’t even get me started on socks!! lol!
Mary S says
Pokemon invaded our home 14 years ago and I sometimes round a corner and there they are again! When the oldest stopped playing with them, the younger one took over.They have a old suitcase with wheels to keep them in and since all of it combined is really heavy, I found the suitcase for them at a thrift store for 3$. Now the Pokemon can be wheeled where ever he wants to play with them,then dumped back in when he’s finished.
Laura says
Oh I LOVE that idea!! Thanks for sharing it 🙂
Heather K says
My daughters would LOVE to visit your house! They like Pokemon a lot, too. They seem to only want to keep the ones they really like (a girl thing, probably). I have to admit I like them as much as they do. ;o)
Ginny says
There isn’t an invasion of toys at our house because my children are grown (the one daughter who still lives at home is almost 26!), but we have invasions of other kinds. I just cleaned the main floor because we had company for dinner, and after they left, I told my husband how great everything looked and that we ought to keep it that way! So even though I threw clutter into laundry baskets and hid it (well, I thought I had until our company wanted to see our craft room, where I had stashed some of it! How embarrassing . . . ), I don’t just want to bring everything back into the great room. I hope I can stick to my resolve to sort through everything and either put it where it belongs or decide to get rid of it. Keep reminding us that we need to get clutter under control, ok?
Barbara Ann says
I have 3 boys, all bit by the Pokemon bug!!! I KNOW that type of clutter and have found a solution for the figures:
http://www.snapware.com/products/smart-store-storage-container-1098601
I got mine at Costco a long time ago, so the design looks different, but it serves the same purpose. There is a handle and my boys tote it around the house as needed. It gives them a limit to the # of figurines they can collect. I also have these handled totes for Hero Factory, wheeled toys, DS games, etc. LOVE the handled boxes.
Laura says
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this myself! I had snapware in my collection I wasn’t even using. Pulled it out and put it to good use. Whoohoo! Thanks so much!!
Jean says
Oh, we went through a Pokemon phase here! The little figures never bothered me as much as all the cards! We would put all the figures in a backpack (it happened to be a Pokemon backpack so it worked out nicely) but the cards were hard to contain! We still deal with card clutter as my son has moved on to another card type game. He used a notebook with baseball card sleeves that worked fairly well for a while. However, like everything else, once the cards came out of the notebook, they didn’t seem to get put back into the notebook. Right now we’re trying photo boxes. I’ll be curious to see what solutions you develop!
Trish Macomber says
We had the Pokemon craze. Then followed the Bella Sara craze, the Webkinz craze, the Littlest Pet Shop craze…all with figures and parts and cards. Well, the cards go into an album on the shelf. Figures and other parts have their fabric bins. Now my little one can find anything, anywhere, anytime, and if any of that stuff becomes valuable in the future, it will be neat and complete.
Rachel says
Hi!
We had an issue like this with legos. One of the things I did for my kids (so they could take them “on the road”) was to give each of them a tackle box (yes, the kind for going fishing). They had a large space at the bottom for works in progress or finished pieces to show off, and smaller sections to divide their pieces into. 🙂