Day 23 of the Great 500 Pound Declutter - The Kids' Bathroom

Ugh.


There is really no other way to describe the toothpaste-encrusted, boy-lived-in (and you men who were once little boys and/or parents of boys will know what that means in relation to the toilet and the floor), clutter-filled bathroom than is the one belonging to my kids.


Well really, it belongs to us, as we pay the mortgage.  We remind the kids of this often.  Yet that doesn't seem to help.


And so it looked like this.

There are eight drawers in there, of which seven had junk in them.  Again, I have little boys,  No girls.  No makeup.  No grooming to speak of yet (the Justin Bieber years are a few years away.  Or rather, I hope, they are never going to happen, but I might be fooling myself there).


There is no reason for these boys to have junk in 7 drawers.  But junk they had.


Like this.  You know, cause who doesn't need a whistle and Fisher Price seal in the bathroom at the ready?

And this.  I love the ear plugs in here.  Those were Caleb's.  He had tubes and needed them for showers baths.  Yeah, cause they weren't showers.  Because they are from when he was 2.  He is 8 1/2 now.

And this.  There was a theme here, I guess.  Random white stuff.  So see, it did make sense!

Speaking of random white stuff.  Welcome to where we shoved the towels.

I started to dig in and had to laugh at this.

Yes, that is a Darth Vader finger puppet hanging out with the q-tips and fingernail clippers and toddler toothpaste.  Evidently Darth is crusading against the use of q-tips for, well for what we all use them for, even though we aren't supposed to. Really, let's face it, they are not for makeup.  They are for ears.  And so perhaps we should just teach people how to clean their ears.  Moving on.

Next I found this.

Here's a little tip from me to you.  When your "Bath Tub Buddies" seem to start spontaneously decomposing in front of your eyes, they cease to be your buddies.  They are now the enemy and should be treated as such.  (And side note, who ever approved the name "Bath Tub Buddies?"  That is wrong on many levels.)

As I dug into the drawers, I realized my kids must have some safety concerns.  Because there with their hair products (which they hate) and combs (which they don't use) were a loud duck whistle and walkie talkie.  Just in case they get stuck in the bathroom, perhaps?

And deeper in that same drawer I found:

Masters of the Universe weapons.  I guess in case the duck whistle and walkie talkie failed them.

Up on top of the counter, someone had been cooking.

A lovely pot of gray marker, Toy Story Woody's-vest, Aquaphor, half a nebulizer piece, 2-rock soup.  My favorite.

In the end, I managed to get us down to just four drawers in use.  Justin Bieber hair products here we come.  We have room.  One has rags in it, the second has stuff for hair cuts, and the other two look like this.

And was able to reorganize my towels to fit like this.

For the first time (I think?) in this process, I did spend a few dollars and picked up an organizer for the top of the counter.  Each boy has a section for his own toothpaste and toothbrush.

 And we now have a counter top that  looks like this.

I am quite sure it won't stay that way.  And we'll be back to rock soup soon.  But at least I made a dent.

And in doing so, got rid of another 2 pounds.  Bringing the running total to:

405 pounds!