Damage Control

That's all I ever do!   Does anyone else feel that way?  I go to bed, the house is totally clean.  By 10am the next morning there are scrambled eggs on the floor, little boy underwear in my living room, toothpaste on the counter AND the lightswitch, cream of wheat dumped in the pantry, clean clothes pulled out of the drawers, papers from yesterday's take home folder tossed in the entry, an entire basket of toys dumped out and of course, dishes and mess from breakfast.  And since I live with four males, I won't even mention what the toilet can look like after just one day.  And that's just the normal stuff.  Then there's this:

And this is fairly common:

And the other day I stumbled upon this:

One day I made the mistake of thinking I could sneak in a quick shower, by myself , while the kids were awake.  Yeah.  I should have known when they weren't banging on my bathroom door.  When I came down my kitchen looked like this:

(yeah, flooded by way of 2 yr old and kitchen sink sprayer.  At least an inch across the entire floor.  You would think I would have noticed the decrease in water pressure in my shower.  So, sorry, no pictures.  This one needed immediate attention - especially the tax documents that were drowning on the kitchen counter.)

And recently, though less detrimental but infinitely more frustrating, my almost 4-yr joined his little brother in SEVERAL instances of this:

I finally figured out that extended time outs and evil looks were not going to fix this habit that had formed, but finally, after hand washing and drying several buckets of toys myself, I figured it out:

(Yes, I'm a mean mom, after throwing away the blocks with now chipping paint, I made him hand dry every single last one.  Problem solved. At least for now.)

Needless to say "Cinderfella" has been very busy lately.