The Battle of the Towel

In my house there are several things that I've had to surrender to my current family situation. For example, we no longer flit out for a quick trip to the store. Instead, it is an hour + excursion involving 3 car seats, packing a bag, and making sure that the timing works with everyone's sleep needs.

The cleanliness of our home has suffered too. I simply had to come to terms with the fact that kids play - and that they prefer to play with toys which have lots of pieces - and those toys seem to land everywhere. It isn't a big problem. My kids do clean up after themselves, but not in the way that adults do. The reality is this: A forgotten lego or a tiny doll shoe kicked in the corner isn't something that they will recognize as needing to be moved.

Another of the eternal battles in our home is the bathroom. My kids are great about washing their hands; before meals, after craft projects, or whenever it just seems like a fun thing to do. They have clean hands - but the bathroom has had a tendency to look as if it was hit with a fire hose. We have spots on the mirror and faucets from drippy hands, puddles tracing a line from the sink to the towel, and until recently we fought the battle-of-the-towel. We always had a towel either scrunched tightly between the towel bar and wall, or unceremoniously piled on the floor where it fell after a child failed to balance it properly in it's rightful place.

I never realized that towel balancing was a skill to be learned: A little too much pulled to the front and it slips off - a little too far back and the same result. We have lost this battle many times over.

So I decided to stop fighting.

I'm not sure where the idea came from, but in a moment of desperation (or maybe frustration) I picked up a pin and threaded it through the towel, anchoring it in place. It worked! No more towel on the floor!

So now, each time I replace our hand-towel, I get to pick a new pretty piece of (rarely worn) bling to show off. Problem solved: The towel is now stuck to it's bar - if they can't get if off, they don't have to replace it.

The jury is still out as to whether this look is completely tacky or not - but for now I don't care.

The kids will all eventually learn how to put a towel up so that it stays put. Later. Today, I'm just happy to have it off the floor. That's one less battle for me to fight.

Next I'll work on the magic solution for keeping the playroom floor clean.