Before And After

I've had a few projects I've been meaning to get to for awhile now, and after the very sad news about Gram on Sunday I decided tackling at least one of them would be a welcome distraction.

Last December, I tackled a similar project following some nursery* shenanigans, and while it was a success at the time, the boys have found more than a few ways to get into mischief since then. Their ability to not only climb, but to find things to precariously stand on in order to do some especially precipitous climbing (something they pride themselves on by the way**) has led to their books (which they will still tear given the opportunity) migrating higher and higher up the nursery bookcase until the books were sitting on top of the bookshelves, rather than in them.

Even with bookends, it all seemed a bit wobbly and I realized that I've been reading less often to my boys as a result – getting the books down without causing a cascade of books to start sliding was starting to be something I would do reluctantly. I love reading to my guys and they love their stories, so yesterday seemed like a good day to finally do something about it.

And by something I mean making room in their closet for any books I don't let them have unlimited access to (which is most of them) and toys that can't be used without supervision.

Have I mentioned that we only have one closet in our 2 bedroom apartment? Because we do. I refer to it as the boys' closet because it's in their bedroom, but really it's an all-purpose closet, so making room for everything I needed to make room in there for was a serious undertaking.

And doing it all while two toddlers were "helping"? Well, that was just asking for trouble obviously.

Still, it made for terrific distraction.

Behold my helpers, moments before I relocated them:

Where they continued to "help" of course:

They eventually got curious about what I was up to however:

Around this point, I was having some serious misgivings about taking on this project since everything was in such a state of disaster it was kind of making me want to cry anyway. In the end I resorted to giving them some of the "forbidden books" to look at while I kept one eye on them and the other on the task at hand. 

The finished result(s): 

You'll note some red drawers privileges have returned – but not the super fun ones! – at least not until I get some latches that hopefully prevent climbing. The toys on the top of the bookshelf are all things they can stand on/make precipitous towers out of so that's why they've been reassigned. Things looked a little more balanced originally, but after supper last night, Nate and Seth actually managed to get a toy down from there while I was tidying up the kitchen. My only guess is that they stood on the bedrail since that's all they had available, but I'll admit it doesn't totally add up.

They're tall boys, but even with the bedrail, I just don't think they're that tall. Maybe they took turns standing on each other's shoulders until one of them managed it. To be honest, I wasn't in the room so I have no idea – but I did shore things up further after I saw they were still able to get up there somehow.

And last but not least, in case you were wondering... 

... Seth's favorite bucket is once again "OK".

- L.

PS. About the Vaseline... I ended up getting a great tip which turned out to be unnecessary for dealing with the boys' hair but was invaluable when it came to cleaning the bucket at least since soap and hot water were not getting the job done. The answer is baby oil. While it might sound counter-intuitive, baby oil cuts through the Vaseline grease and is easily removed with soap and hot water – in between, it sort of makes a bigger mess but it's short lived. Just wanted to pass that along in case you happen to have a Vaseline in the hair (or anywhere else) incident in your home.

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*I've actually been very good about not calling the boys' room a nursery anymore, but it was still legitimately called that at the time.

**I mentioned cryptophasia in a previous post and since it ties in nicely with this one – and also since I haven't gotten around to a proper post about my boys and their "twin speak" yet (and at this rate, never will), "anasahnize" will serve for now. I've spelled that phonetically of course since the boys aren't big spellers yet. It took me awhile to figure out it's meaning, but quite specifically it is this:

Anasahnize (ah-NAH-sah-nize)

– verb

1. the act of standing upon something precipitous in a dangerous fashion. Best served with a side of giggles.

The after-effect of anasahnize sometimes look like this since anasahnize is often deployed for ill-gotten gains:

10:30 PM a few weeks ago, post-anasahnize.

And so proud of ourselves too!

The box that held those puzzles used to be located on top of their dresser where I assumed it was safely out of reach. This particular anasahnize incident involved stacking soft toys in their bed to make a tall enough tower to reach up there. When I walked in on the aftermath, both boys proudly declared "anasahnize!" and then had the temerity to try to reenact their crimes while I was still cleaning up the first one. Fortunately they are shameless that way because up until then I'd been scratching my head wondering how they'd managed it.

For whatever it's worth, anasahnize has worked it's way into the vernacular over here. Frankly it's easier to say, "No anasahnize!" than "Get off that wobbly tower because it's dangerous and also stop building dangerous wobbly towers so you can get at things that I don't want you getting at!".

Unfortunately we have enough words like this now that I'm pretty sure I won't even be speaking English by next year.