Cleaning - oh what fun it is!

I started off my day trying to find a box so that Curtis could ship something to a family member. Of course, I couldnt' find the size I was looking for so I ended up cleaning where we keep our shipping supplies. With four small children, we have to gate off anything we don't want destroyed by curious little fingers.

If you could only see this place! My desk, where I used to work from home and the bookshelves are all blocked with one of those big supergates you get at Toys R Us. Katie decided a long time ago, before she could walk, that she loved Mommy and Daddy's books. She would pull the paperbacks down from the shelf and tear out the pages. We will have to replace our Travis McGee collection someday because only four or so survived the "tornado" a.k.a. Katie. Anyways, my shipping supplies started out behind that gate nice and neat but as the days passed things got thrown behind the gate by all of us. Mostly by Logan - one of his favorite games is to throw anything and everything on the other side of the gate and then come get Mommy and Daddy to go over and get it for him.
This morning I was able to find the puzzle pieces that had been M.I.A. for several weeks, all of Logan's favorite dinosaur toys, socks, a shoe, some cards and some of balls that belong in this Snake toy. They are hard plastic with beans or something that makes an irritating noise when ever they bounce. I'm not too sure if the balls were there due to Logan. By the end of the day, the sound of those stupid things bouncing on the tiles in the entry way are enough to make me go screaming "Calgon, take me away!" I'm sure those were my fault; I try to hide them as much as possible. I know, I'm a mean Mommy!

Since I started cleaning in order to find this box and we have some company coming this evening; I decided to keep going. We also have a supergate blocking off our television so that Logan or any other child can't climb it or touch it or throw things at it. I found even more stuff over there and finally found the box I had been looking for all along. I have now packed that box and the other two boxes that I needed to mail. Baby stuff for Jen's adorable little guy and baby girl stuff for Logan's previous teacher Ms. Kelly. Jennifer had her little guy over two months ago and I have had this stuff sitting here to mail to her since then. Rather than do my normal routine where the babys get their gifts when they turn 21, I decided to go ahead and pack up their stuff to be mailed. I found all my shipping supplies so why not take advantage of that fact, especially since I may not be able to find everything again for another 6 months or longer!

I am now going to get into the playroom (Calgon just drown me already!!) and attempt to get it clean not that it will stay that way for more than 10 minutes but I can at least say I did it. How is it that the playroom and Marie's room is disgusting 20 minutes after I'm done picking up and vacuuming?! Never mind; I don't want to hear the answer to that question.