Wastebaskets

I read somewhere that each room ought to have it's own trash receptacle. Every room in your house has the potential to generate trash. if you don't have a place to put it in that room, you are either wasting time hauling it out of the room or you are leaving tiny plastic clothes tags on the windowsill or empty granola bar wrappers here and there, etc. Do you have a wastebasket in every room of your house? I don't.

For my upstairs, at this point, I have a large garbage can in the bathroom and it all ends up there. And if it doesn't, I take a grocery sack and make a trash-pass through all the bedrooms and then bring it downstairs to the kitchen trash. When I cleaned out my closet, one thing I began to stock in there full time is a bunch of plastic grocery sacks. I keep them in a basket and whenever I need to bag something up, BAM. DONE. Having a stash of these bags right there in my closet has been such a smart move, if only because I have the ability to execute those "I need to bag these clothes up for goodwill" thoughts nearly immediately. This morning I bagged up a poopy diaper in one, gathered trash in another and bagged up old clothes in a third!

But I do see the sense in having trash cans in every room, especially the kids and their bedrooms as they grow older and generate trash. In Henry's room especially. The makeover I gave his room before Christmas resulted in a great desk for him to sit at and hatch his various plans at. If he had a trash can there, the various wrappers and dud drawings could end up there instead of piled on his desk, with "nowhere" to put them. He could also use his own laundry basket. Right now he undresses in our bedroom before he brushes his teeth for bed, and it's beginning to be time to give him his own private space for that. He is either snickering at me while I am getting dressed or the excitement of being noody-toody in front of the rest of us results in lots of exciting tearing around the upstairs, trying to get someone (anyone!) to react to something (anything!)

It's a tricky thing, trying to instill modesty and a respect for privacy in a kid without passing on ones own skewed issues around nudity and intimacy, you know what I mean?

It's a beautifully warm day today, I think we will be going for a walk after school...