I don’t know if you are the same as me but sometimes (ok actually a lot) something will be bugging me for ages and instead of doing something about it I will grumble, sigh and ignore it and get on with my day until the next time I notice it.

I think of these things as niggles, the intention to sort them out is always there at the back of my mind and nothing ever gets done about them, but just lately I’ve been forcing myself to get off my bum and act on them immediately instead of writing them off to the land of tomorrow (never comes).

                                                           Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Here are a few examples

Problem:Jacob The Explorer

Jake like any one year old loves exploring, which means that every time the living room door gets left open he’s off into the hall or the kitchen where his favourite things to do are to lick the wheels of the buggy, attempt to remove the bin bag from the bin while the lid is on and open the cupboard and munch on a raw potato, you might think closing the door behind me is the solution but no, Jake will pay you back by sitting right behind while you suck your gut in and try and squeeze through the gap in the door whilst trying not to squash his chunky little digits in the process.

The Solution

Daisy had a safety gate on her room but we also have one at both the top and the bottom of the stairs so it wasn’t really necessary anymore, I could kick myself that I didn’t think to bring it downstairs sooner.

Problem: Addicted To Wires

This one involves Jake again, I don’t know how but his little baby brain has memorised every area in the house where a stray wire might be accessible, despite moving our bookcase as close as we can to the wall his little hands were still able to reach in the gap and access the holy grail of wires and plugs, of course we would move him away and tell him no which would be met with a look of absolute disdain and no sooner had we sat down again he was back at them.

The Solution

After the above situation had been going on for months I finally realised that if I turned the bookcase at an angle he would no longer be able to get to any of the wires or plugs, mum 1 baby nil !

Problem: Too Many Toys

I don’t know about you but one thing I really struggle with is deciding how many toys are too many, Daisy and Jake are at the age where they get more fun from strewing the toys all over the floor than actually playing with one thing at a time, this is fine in their bedrooms but in the living room it’s getting quite dangerous, we don’t have a huge amount of space and navigating mega blocks, books and dolls is becoming a very frustrating challenge.

I’m an advocate of toy rotation and not over facing children with too many choices at once so I’m quite cross with myself that this problem has developed.

The Solution

This solution actually came from Daddy, he suggested that we take almost all the toys out of the living room and let the children choose a couple of things a day to play with, these will then be put away at the end of the day.

Why is it that we let things niggle us for ages?, why don’t we just solve the problem straight away ? who knows ?

Do you find yourself doing this ? leave me a comment below I would love to hear from you.

Angela x