On Wednesday, my mother-in-law blessed me with a day off from the kids. I love my children, but there are some tasks that are so much easier to handle without them around. I spent the majority of Wednesday pulling out newborn and 0-3 month clothes as well as reorganizing (and finally labeling) pretty much all the children's clothing bins. Every time I have tried to do this with kids around it turns into a bigger mess than it started out as and all the chaos generally leads me to lose my temper. Being able to sort and sift through everything on my own was actually quite enjoyable. Too enjoyable apparently because I forgot to keep drinking water and ended up having contractions 5-7 minutes apart for more than an hour. Hydrating and a warm bath knocked them out, but the prospect of bringing the bins back down to the basement by myself was a little daunting after that. Instead I stacked them in the corner of our living room. The results of leaving them out where the kids could get at them was fantastic. They spent several hours on Thursday and Friday building and playing with the bins. There was a house, an epic sword fight inspiring fortress, a tunnel, and a fishing boat. It was a good reminder to me of how little kids need aside from their imaginations to entertain themselves.
