Household Tips

My sister-in-law Shalissa polled her friends and family on mommy tips. I thought they were helpful and decided to post them here. I’ve added a few of my own, as well as a few of yours. I've renamed them "Household Tips" because many of them can apply to anyone, not just Mommies. Feel free to add your own tips in the comment section.

From Wendy (Shalissa's friend):

• Yogurt container bath toys. We've been through a few phases where someone was always pooping in the tub and it was a huge hassle to not only try to santitize the people and the tub, but also the bath toys! With old yogurt containers, big and little, I don't feel bad just throwing them away if they're dirty or mildewed, and they work great for rinsing hair, and they're good for kids developing spatial awareness (volume ie Archimedes) AND I feel like I did something good for the environment by reusing them since they're a #5 which our recycle bin doesn't take.

• Hubby pack Sunday bag. Should have thought of this long ago, but Josh to help with my chronic lateness has taken on the task of packing our church bag before he leaves with cheerios, extra clothes, sippy cups, Sunday books, etc. This is something he can do to help us every Sunday on his own time table, even when he has meetings, and I can grab it and go.

• Clipboards nailed to walls, especially in bathroom and kitchen. You introduced me to this and it's still one of my favorites. Great place to post Ensigns, pictures, all sorts of educational and inspiring handouts you don't have time to sit and read but might glance at on the wall.

• Jimmy-rig lamination. Use wide packing tape to enclose small quotes or scriptures and read them in the shower.

• Laundry drawer near entryway, since that's where everyone's socks come off, at least at our house. It's also nice to have a place for other dirty laundry on the main floor. I use the bottom drawer of a plastic set for laundry, and the upper drawers are for socks, hats, gloves, hair ribbons, etc. It's closed so out of sight and not smelly. On laundry day I dump it into the laundry hamper on the way down to the basement, or bring the whole drawer with me. Hmmm--that might not work if there were a very curious toddler who liked dumping drawers out.

• Week-view planner. I read on an organization site that a big problem people have is their information is scattered so many different places throughout the house--wall calendar, to-do lists, shopping list, purse, menu list, scraps of paper with notes, etc. Computers are great for this but not as portable or always practical. So I'm starting to try using just a week-view planner (M-W on left, Th-Sun or right side) for everything (well, more things). Appointments (just here, not on calendar too), to-do lists, week's menu ideas or non-specific-time activity/project/task ideas at the top, people's phone numbers and notes get written in on the day I got them and I can always turn back to find it if I need it later. This is not fully tried and tested yet. :)

From Michelle (Shalissa's friend):

• Okay, so my son is not so excited about the homemade bread sandwiches that I try to send in his lunches. New favorites? Leftover homemade pizza from the night before or bean and cheese tortillas (pop in the microwave for 30 seconds just to melt cheese, then wrap up in plastic wrap). Both are great cold, not messy at all, and both he can pack up himself!

• [Michelle also introduced me to 1) the marvelous Clorox bleach pen which doesn't jeopardize everything in the vicinity with a spill--great for stains and tubs and 2) the myriad uses for industrial strength velcro, available anywhere.]

From Virginia (Shalissa's friend):

• [Referencing "The LDS Mothers Almanac":] One that I remember is to tie a plastic grocery bag to your vacuum so you can pick up misplaced items as you move from room to room, then you're going that way anyway and can put things away.

• I also subscribed recently to about.com weekly housekeeping newsletter. I've gotten only one letter and it was simple and quick (it was about tile and we don't have a lot of that here). But there was a link to this interesting video on cleansers http://video.about.com/housekeeping/Green-Kitchen-Cleaners.htm

From Kristen (Shalissa's friend):

• Take a paper cup and put food coloring mixed with baby soap and let kids paint the walls in the bathtub and then just wash off after.

• I don't know how it is around your home but I have noticed that I neededa little "extra help" :-) in having productive conversations around the table at dinner to replace the "don't look at me" and "eat your food" and "nagging" that seems to happen. I decided to make a colorful CONVERSATION JAR that we can pick out of. Thought I'd pass on the document.
  

From Brianne (yep, that's me):

• I subscribe to this website (http://themomclub.blogspot.com), which has had some good ideas. I particularly liked the kitchen tips, like lining your measuring cups with plastic wrap before measuring hard to clean foods (e.g. shortening).

From Shalissa:

• I bought a 3 1/2 foot "Gopher" (extension clutch thing for the elderly to use) that prevents my having to bend down to pick up toys during the last 2 months of pregnancy. It cost $9 at Walmart, and is WONDERFUL.

• A pocketed apron costs $1 at Home Depot. Wearing either this or scrubbs (maternity comfy, with BIG pockets) allows me to just collect random everythings all over the house as I go. In my laundry room, I have stacking open sided baskets labled for each room. When I periodically go in there, I just empty all my pockets into the right bin. This makes for very little walking back and forth when it's time to clean up. Sometimes I wheel a little cart through the house picking up everything out of place, and then sort it into the baskets. I deliver the baskets once a day to the right room.

More from Brianne:

• I'm in love with flexible cutting boards. They are great for regular chopping; but you can also line the bottom of your kitchen sink when you are peeling potatoes, etc., and then dump the peelings right in the garbage; and since I don't have a pastry cloth, I knead my bread on one of these. Less mess, less clean up.

• Use a pizza cutter to make child-size bite of toast, waffles, french toast, pancakes (keep shapes if you make shaped pancakes), sandwiches, etc.

• Hand sanitizer in the car cup-holder during winter, also disinfecting wipes in my purse for shopping carts

• Keep diapers and wipes in regular changing spots (I have a couple different spots I tend to use), and same set-up every time (I put the clean diaper on the left of the child, wipes on the upper right side, and dirty diaper on the lower right side) so you're not scrambling to keep a poopy diaper from being poopy carpet.

• Everything has a spot, especially toys (labels are good for kids)=cleaner house.

• Empty sink=cleaner kitchen. If the dishwasher is full, I rinse everything on one side and store it on the other (if you have two sides)

• Love disinfecting wipes. Keep in each bathroom (for little boys with aiming skills less than par) and in kitchen.

• In the kitchen I have one scrubber for scrubbing, and one scrubber for cleaning. This keeps the cleaning scrubber sanitary for longer.

• Let kids get truly hungry (not to be mistaken for starving) to encourage eating what's placed before them. In other words, don't let them snack all day. Also, don't eat anything in front of them that you don't want them to see while they are working on their vegetables or whatever.

• Use straws to get them to drink.

• When I'm pregnant, it gets increasingly difficult to lug around laundry baskets. I've fallen in love with the mesh laundry bags. I can sort my clothes into them, and toss them down the stairs.

• This comes from when I was dealing with morning sickness: I just didn't feel well enough to fold laundry. So I started sorting the clean laundry into baskets based on which room it was going in. And eventually, when I got around to that room, I would fold and put it away in one sitting. This only works if you do the next thing:

• Clean laundry stays in the room, dirty laundry leaves the room. If you try to take a basket of clean, unfolded laundry into a room with dirty laundry, it will inevitably get mixed together.

• When sorting your dirty laundry, it is helpful to label the separate loads. I have enough laundry of different colors that I have these labels: very dark, blue jeans, medium/light blue, medium/light pink and yellow, red, and white.

From a different Kristen (my friend):

• About the mommy tips... hmm, I guess the thing that came to mind for me is getting your kids to say "please" and "thank you." The best way to do this (as well as most things) is to lead by example. Instead of ordering your kids to do something (which I do too much), ask politely, and they will pick up on it and do the same. We also are sticklers about saying please at the dinner table. Sentences that begin with "I want.." are not really heard.

From Meg (my friend):

• as for my parenting/housekeeping tip--i take this from the flylady. use your timer for things you don't want to do, or don't feel like you have time to do. you can do anything for ten or fifteen minutes, and even that little time will make a difference. sometimes i use the timer for a time-in for jane, time that we do whatever she wants to do and i can play without distractions.

• my other tip comes from a friend who recently read glimpses about marjorie hinckley. her mothering philosophy was to say yes as much as she could and to hold her children as much as she could. this is a good reminder to me to do the same.