If you're house is cluttered and you're Mad as a Hare, join March Fledgling Flyers and get it all square

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

Following on from the February Fledgling Flyers thread, welcome to March. This is the thread that follows the Flylady website (loosely) for getting your home decluttered and your housework into routines, whilst dispensing tea and chat freely.

A big thank you to PushMePullYou for leading us through February ably assisted by ToffeeFudgeCake. We had a huge influx of new posters as well, which was lovely, anyone else who is lurking, please say hello, you will be very welcome.

We have a fairly relaxed attitude to Flying and take some of the babysteps - such as getting dressed to lace-up shoes - with a pinch of salt. We also strongly advise against signing up for the FlyLady emails.

From the first of the month, we will be following Flylady's tips on restoring order to our homes, using one of the following methods:

1. Babysteps
2. Babysteps + 15 mins daily decluttering
3. Babysteps + daily missions

Following the babysteps helps to establish daily routines and build a weekly plan.

If you are overwhelmed by the mess in your home, start with just one thing: shine your sink. It's amazing what you can achieve by just doing a bit at a time!

slow progress here

done
hoovering stairs/bedroom
ordered some long procrastinated violin music for ds1 from distant shop
sent another procrastinated email I was dreading
emailed dh to say something nice

sink still full of cr**p though
and some bedrooms still piled with laundry

[sigh] I'm not getting anywhere - knot of tension is back

pickup and piano lesson next for ds2

linzer well done on happy playdate!

Attention of night time wee monsters

Could I ask how old your children are who are doing this? Are you talking babies/toddlers? It's just that my Ds2 is 4.8 and still isn't dry at night. He's been dry in the day since 22 months so i'm not sure where we are going wrong. He has to wear nappies as pull-ups just don't hold it. Nappies don't either but better. Recently have started letting him wear pants to bed then putting a nappy on when i go up at 10pm -so 3 hours and in that time he has wet 2 out of 5 times. It doesn't even wake him to be wet and if i take him out to the toilet he doesn't remember in the morning so kind of defeats the point. Any help appreciated!

Arriving late on the thread today. Overnight visitor just departed for the station, but despite them being around for longer than I anticipated I've flown quite well today. We decided to go out for lunch and they had some work stuff to do so I sorted out the house during the morning and then had a lovely lunch.

done list

swish and swipe
mission (scrubbed all the limescale off the shower, I'm not sure if that's today's mission or not but it is definitely one of this week's and it really needed doing.)
dry washing put away
another load put on
hot spot cleared
pile of clean sheets, pillow cases and duvet covers sorted and put away
shiny sink
tea made for DCs
various emails mostly done
DS1 birthday party sorted
article written (though I stayed up late to do this so will crash at some point today.)
very nice lunch

to do

various phone calls
some more of the house blessing
hang out wet washing
lots of delivering and collecting of DCs who have various extra things on this afternoon/evening.

DS1's Oyster card has arrived in the post, which will please him.

F x x

NickNacks, my DD still isn't dry at night and is now at the age where I think drs are willing to intervene. (7)Taking her to sort this out is on my long term to do list.

DS1 was dry at night at around the same time as during the day (3), DS2 wasn't until just before his 7th birthday but is now completely reliable. DD is now 8 and it hasn't happened.

I don't know whether you are in the UK but here I don't think that they do much until they are 7. Up till then it is fairly normal to have 1 or 2 children in a school class that aren't dry at night.

I am aware that it runs in our family so have taken a very laid back approach. The boys did it without any particular intervention from me when they were ready. Have held off dealing with DD till now as DS2 was so late, but think I will have to do something now.

It's a shame because I think taking her to the dr to see what they can do will make her embarrassed and so far I've managed to avoid that.

Nick DS is also 4.8. He was dry for a month or so when he was first potty trained at 2, but seems to be getting wetter at night if anything! I'm not too concerned though, as I'm sure it will sort itself eventually - DD1 wasn't dry until she was 6 (although she wasn't potty trained until she was almost 4) and DD2 wasn't regularly dry until she was around 5. I used to lift them and it definitely helped (although I know some people say it doesn't), but there's no point in doing so with DS as I'm sure he'd still end up wetting himself afterwards. I also think it's normal for boys to take longer to be dry at night than girls, but I must admit I can't wait to get rid of the nappies entirely!

Thanks funambulist . I am aware of other children who are older and not dry at night yet, so not overly worried- it's just that he doesn't even seen close to being ready. He must have it in him though if he's dry in the day and very reliably so.

Ds1 was 3.6 when dry at night but i have feeling my brother was quite late so possible in the family in that way.?

Like you I've not made an issue of it so as not to cause embarrassment but DH thinks he should stop wearing nappies now- not sure quite how he supposes we do that!!!

I am in the UK and speak regularly to HV due to DD being a baby atm so poss will mention it to her. I didn't realise they waited until 7 before stepping in to help.

Thanks for help- good to know we're not alone!

Thank also Linzer (took my ages to write ^ that clearly )

I also feel at the moment there would be no point lifting him as he still wouldn't be dry!

Would love to get rid of the nappies especially now we have DD who 6 months, it's not cheap!

Nicknacks here in the uk it is not consisdered an issue of boys arent dry before they are 8yrs old. Doctors wont consider it a possible problem before 7yo. My night time wee monster is 6 but is affected by meds. However, there is male family history on his father's side of being very late to be dry. As it is due to the release of a hormone, it is likely that the timing of when this starts to affected similar in the family. Thus whilst it is a pain i am not worried.

Hi everyone. Not had time to read through thread from last night and today but suffice to say i've not done any FLYing as DD still not well and so just doing basic's. Been to Dr's with her and have taken in a urine sample so hopefully we'll get the result soon. Worked this morning too so DH had to stay at home with her. Picked up her homework and she's done that so feel i've done something as she had times tables and spellings/sentences to do which took some time.

Hope those with poorly children are almost through the worst of it too and catch up soon

Nicknacks dd and ds1 and ds2 were all bed wetters at that stage, and I used the Drynites for all of them until I started lifting at 5, then stopped lifting at 6 for dd and ds1 (I think) and 7 for ds2. We made the decision to stop lifting ds2 who was still wetting the bed at 7, because I think it was aggravating (he was becoming used to peeing frequently all night, rather than holding on)rather than solving the problem. He stopped regularly wetting at 7(though still used rubber sheets), and now aged 8 (or shall I say 9) wets once a month or less. In fact one wet bed in 30 days is the average.
So, I wouldn't worry

piano run done
dd has a friend coming round, in fact it all feels quite cosy, I'm glad to have the children back home
what a horrible freezing day it is, although the plants all seem to think it is Spring

P.S. we lifted at 11pm, and they went to bed at 7.30. We stopped because they were too heavy to carry anymore, and dh wanted to go to bed at 10.30! I think there was a short period of going cold turkey when we thought help, drynites! or let's lift again! (because it was two similar age children and two sets of wet sheets) but stuck to our guns and they basically stopped wetting every night.

nicknacks ds is 4.6 and he is still wet. Someone told me that staying dry is due to development of a particular hormone which dr don't consider fully developed until 6 yrs. Depends on child dd 2.6 potty training but she is already dry at night but not in the day.

(never worked for me) hope you are ok.

Nicknacks - my youngest son is 5.4 and still goes through phases of wetting the bed. He always goes to bed in pants, but I put Pampers Night-time mats under his sheet to protect the mattress. Sometimes - like last night - he wails to himself in a sleepy, uncomfortable way and if I sit him on the potty, he does a wee and goes back to sleep. So I think he just doesn't quite know, whilst he is in that sleepy state, why he is so uncomfortable. I'm not worried about it at all, as I'm sure it will sort itself out in due course. I'm afraid your DH will have to be patient! (And, anyway, I bet you're the one who gets up in the night to deal with it!).

Swan - sorry you are feeling a knot of tension. I have one too...

Am really not doing well at my work here. I have just been sent another chapter to do and promised that I will send it back by next week as they need a fast turnaround - but, on the evidence of my work output this week, I do wonder how I will do that. I feel as if I'm trying to do dozens of jobs at once, all badly. And the baby birds still keep cheeping for food ( Swan ). It would be so much easier if they didn't want to eat all the time.

And I feel bad about myself because DS2 has had his first day back at school since being ill and I have just stuck him in front of the telly and gone back to work. Well, I did get him a snack and read him a couple of stories first, to appease my guilt. But I still feel guilty.

Also, I'm feeling a bit headachy and sick and now I'm worried that I'm coming down with DS's bug. But am probably just being a hypochondriac.

And to cap it all, DH came back from MILs with loads of crap stuff that she thought might be useful for us: an ancient vase that will go straight to charity, tools that DH thinks he needs (he hardly ever does DIY), boxes of stuff I'm scared to look into. I'm afraid I just see this as more work for me .

Phew. Rant over.

Time to do the washing up and dinner.

swan and Toffee - I think the knot of tension might be contagious. The house is a tip, I've only just got the DC to bed (45 minutes later than I'd like) and, despite the lack of (urgent) work, I don't think a relaxing evening is on the cards. Our cleaner will be here at 7 am tomorrow so I need to get the house into a cleanable state before then (plus she has a tendency to put things away in the wrong places and I can never find them afterwards). Think I might just arm myself with a couple of large boxes and fling everything in!

The crisis cleaning was about as unsuccessful this afternoon as it was this morning, what with homework to be supervised, the ballet run, exercise books to be bought and friends here (so couldn't stick the DC in front of the TV all afternoon ). DD2's friend's mum got delayed so she wasn't picked up until almost 7 pm; her mum was very apologetic and bought us some apple cake, but tbh it was DS's insistence on having pancakes for dinner that caused the most delay. No piano practice done again either.

DH won't be back until around 11 pm so I can't do my usual trick of disappearing upstairs to work while he tidies up the chaos of the day. Must have something to eat, and then it will be back to crisis cleaning take 3.

DS is only 3.11, so I forsee a long time yet of wet beds to sort. He sleeps through the night, so I have a soggy mess to deal with several mornings a week. It has made me wary of taking him out overnight - DH is going to be away next week and has asked if we want to go down and stay overnight sometime. I've said "no", as I can't cope with the idea of other people's beds possibly getting wet.

Need to grab some energy from somewhere, and get DS to bed. He's with DH at the moment, as he doesn't see him much during the week (he's at playgroup when DH gets up and if DH is in the office, DS is in bed by the time DH gets home). Plus next week DH will be away from Monday (or it could be Sunday) until following Saturday or Sunday.

Sorry life caught up with me and no time to post.

Hopefully i'm back, first week of final school placement before I qualify and I'm exhausted and the house is a mess, not coming home before 7pm most nights.

Have been to post office and picked up a parcel on way home, been and done shopping, picked up DD, cooked tea and done some washing. Now need to put DD to bed, sort bins out and do some planning.

I will be back - Hello to everyone, hope you are all well and life is treating you good.

Wow! There's lots of us changing wet beds here. At least we can all be sure that we're doing 10 mins of sheet changing per week as per Flylady's houseblessing rules.

Lady I hope your DD is better soon.

Toffee I'm sorry that you feel unwell and stressed. I'm sure that DS2 was very happy to watch tv. Don't feel guilty, we all need to use tv as a babysitter sometimes. Sorry to hear that you've acquired more clutter.

Linzer sounds like you've had a stressful day too.

Making changes good luck with the school placement.

I have had a frantic afternoon collecting DS2 from his after school club, running him to karate, jogging back to the car, driving home to make DS1 tea and giving him instructions on locking up the house and getting to station to go to his school for a concert (I was home for 15 minutes - God bless quick cook pasta!) Then raced back to school to collect DD from a fixture. She was late back so ran to karate to collect DS2, karate overran so wasn't there when DD arrived back. Lovely friend took DD to her house but then of course had to stop there on way home once karate finished. Still feel rather tense from all the running around and DS2 and DD still up chatting doing homework.

Made one of the phonecalls on my todo list but have done nothing else and feel exhausted! How on earth do people cope with more than 3 DCs on days like this I feel extremely overstretched.

today was a flying write off. but am just about to go to sleep. I am suitably dosed up on painkillers and have a plain of action for tomo. I will be fine as long as in the morning i can remember what i did with my todo list

Leaves , and s and other nibbles

hope all the tension and stress knots have losened slightly

Night all.

btw if any one sees my memory could you return it?

Thanks for all the messages about bed-wetting. It makes me feel better to know we aren't the only ones. We shall sit in wait for this magical hormone then Lost , Nettie . That will make my washing machine sing with joy

LadyInPink Sorry to hear your DD is still poorly. So many of us FLYing with sick LO's atm, isn't there?

Swan Nice to hear you've made it out the other side of bed-wetting. Once every 30 days I could cope with.

Toffee I will try the Pampers bed sheets thanks. His poor matteress! I've tried the plastic ones but they weren't very good- I need something that will soak. And you're right- it is always me sorting out his bed!

Ihatecobwebs I'm the same about him staying out overnight, I always warn relatives but it makes me feel bad from them and their furnishings!

Welcome back makingchanges

List

WM on done
TD on done
DW salt/rinse aid topped up
wash DD bouncy chair cover done
change DS2's bed - wet AGAIN! done
2 baskets of clean clothes away done
Call Gas maintainence people done
Take bins out
hoover downstairs

I'm too tired to do anymore so will just add last few bits on to tomorrowa list.

Good evening!

Hope you've all had a good day!

With all the talk of wet beds, it's making me quite glad my DS is not quite at the potty-training stage yet! Hope you all see progress soon - I suppose for all but a few cases, children just do it when they're ready. Although it is always stressful waiting for them to get to the next stage.

LadyinPink - hope your DD gets better soon, am feeling your pain!

Lostintheblackhole - Hope you feel better tomorrow, and you find your memory under your pillow!

Funambulist - With three DCs, I think it's entirely reasonable to be overstretched!

LinzerTorte - Good luck with the crisis cleaning! Sounds like you've had a ridiculously busy day!

Toffee - Hope you feel better tomorrow.

Hopefully I think DS is getting a bit better. He's eaten a proper sized meal tonight for the first time in a few days. I'm keeping him of nursery tomorrow though as I think he'll be contagious for a while longer. Heard from my sis that my nephew has got symptoms too. Feel bad that I didn't realise DS had Hand,Foot and Mouth until he'd been in contact with quite a few children.

Have still managed to do a fair bit today...

Strip Bed DONE
Wash Bedding DONE
Iron Bedding DONE
Make Bed DH CURRENTLY DOING!
Morning Routine DONE
Visit from my Mum DONE
Hoover through Downstairs DONE
Mission DONE
Send RSVP DONE
15 mins decluttering - will take a pile of mags to bed to go through whilst watching TV
Clean one oven - currently marinating in oven cleaner

Have also done quite a few more loads of handwashing.

Will finish off the jobs from today tomorrow seeing as I won't be going to work.

I'm off to bed for an early night and some romantic decluttering in bed!

Gosh what a tough day for so many of you. i hope tomorrow is more fruitful. & [beer] & to all who need it.

today has been quite quiet. i was bored really at work and again spent the day wishing i was at home where there is plenty to do.

my list
Dc despatched to nursery-*done(
Me to work-done
Monsoon sale order if cheap enough- done nowt there
Sort out final loose ends for insurance claim on phone-done
Routines done
Clothes w/f/i/d done
Transfer more data from old phone-done
Check slow puncture tyre.-done there is a screw in it!!

ah well im off to get into pjs and chill. starting slimfast tomorrow. preserving my energy with an early night.

nite all xx

Evening all

Another busy day here, work is getting busy at the moment. At least no after school activities today, so have been at home with the DCs since 3.30, and done a lot of tidying, I am really going for tidying this week as it has slipped a lot and means I can?t get much cleaning done.

Nettie / Swan / Cobwebs ? I just shove all the school stuff in their box files all year, then in the summer holidays I buy a couple of folders and sit down and sift through it all and put it all in over a glass of wine once they are in bed. They also both have a ? treasure box? in their bedrooms where they can keep tickets, leaflets, seashells, whatever. DS loves the little maps you get given when you go places. It does all add up to quite a lot of stuff still though.

MrsS hope DS is better soon, well done on the raffle

Longtime faffing about is one of my favourite expressions.

Cyberweb not surprised you have keeled over, that is a lot of stuff you have got done

Cobwebs ? when I declutter drawers, shelves etc, my top tip is to put everything back in plastic baskets, helps keep stuff sorted out and it is easy to lift out one basket if you need to rummage around and look for something. Practically every cupboard or drawer in my house has baskets in now, apart from clothes ones.

Snot ? well done on your assignment

Nicknacks ? hope the DCs are better soon. No real advice about wetting that the others haven?t already said really.

Swan ? nice that you have re-found your friend, hope your knot of tension releases itself soon

Lost ? glad you are getting your sleep routine improved

Fun sounds as though you had a productive day

LadyinPink ? hope DD is better soon

Toffee ? oh dear, try not to feel bad about letting DS2 watch telly, I?m sure he won?t have minded. Hope you aren?t getting ill. I feel your pain re MILS offloading their crap onto you, my ILs substantially downsized their house a couple of years ago and MIL foisted all sorts of stuff onto us (Charles and Diana wedding mug anyone?)

Linzer ? another knot of tension, poor you, unfortunate about the delayed friend pick up, I?m glad she was apologetic. My DCs requested pancakes for tea too, we had them for pudding. I got a real shock at tea-time, I used a carton of soup as a base for curry (it was a curried vegetable soup, I added chicken). Spinach was clearly visible and you could taste potato and cauliflower in it, and they both ate it without comment! DS has never knowingly eaten any of those veg since he was about 18 months old.

Makingchanges ? hello, good luck with your placement, see you soon.

Right, that will do for today, all this talk of food has made me hungry again (plus the fact the DH is munching pancakes).

Thursday

Babystep Set a bedtime and stick to it. I'm not very good at this one.

Mission

Thanks for the round up whoknows !

I'm not very good at the bedtime routine because i just want to crawl into bed. Instead i have a routine at the kids bedtime. After dinner i clear kitchen and DW on, wash bottles and put sterilser on, boil kettle for bottles. 15 mins before bedtime the kids have to tidy up their toys. Whilst they are in the bath/cleaning teeth i do my upstairs jobs like getting clothes out for next day, making sure bags are packed, swish and swipe, etc. Then i come down and make bottles and finish with a very quick (no more than 5 mins) tidy up in sitting room.

Then its Soaps (all of them !) time on sky+ cos i'm not usually down till 7.30pm and means i can skip through the adverts! Bed at 10pm. Which is almost now so i will bid you all a good night!