The Organization Continues

Since Carson has been having a rough time lately, I decided to start organizing his room today. Ever since I did Hayden's, Carson has wanted his done, so I figured this is the perfect time. It will make him happy.

Carson really wanted to go to school today, so he did. I was a little worried. I didn't want him to get bumped into or be in a lot of pain, but everything worked out fine. I told him he can't go out for recess, so he took some books to read while everyone else was at recess. He had a good day, and he even got a smiley face.

In his room I started by emptying his toy box, his dresser drawers and his closet. I started trying to figure out which containers would work where, and which toys would work in which containers. I came up with a great idea. Hayden used to have a Rubbermaid unit in his closet that had three drawers in it. It wasn't designed very well because the drawers were very big and the top of the unit didn't have a lot of support so it started sagging down in the middle, which made the top drawer difficult to work. To close it I would have to reach my hand inside and pull the top up, while closing the drawer and trying to get my hand out of the way before it got pinched. When I redid Hayden's room I took that unit out and was going to put the whole thing in our recycle bin. Then I looked at the drawers and realized I could pull them out and use them as containers. I used two of them in Hayden's closet. I saved the third one for future use. I was still going to recycle the rest of the unit, because I figured it would be of no use without the drawers. Luckily, I had stuck it down in the basement instead of immediately getting rid of it. Today I realized I can use it as a shelving unit. It fits perfectly in Carson's closet. I put all of his large puzzles on the two bottom shelves of it and put all of his smaller puzzles in a container on the top shelf of it. There's still room for one more container on it. There are also two tall skinny drawer units in the closet, one that was already in there and one that came from Hayden's closet. I'm hoping I can do his whole room without buying anything. I still have some new containers that I bought a while ago but haven't used yet, so he will have some new things.

When Carson came home from school he asked why I messed his room up. I showed him what I had done so far. He seemed a little disappointed with his closet because he wanted a brand new shelf like Hayden got. I explained that his closet is a different shape and the things I put in there would fit better. Then I told him to make it cooler we could make labels to put on all of the drawers and containers in his closet, and I even have different colors of labels he can pick from. Green is his favorite color, so I told him we will do labels in green. He was happy about that. I think he'll like it when it's done.

Carson is really playing up the broken bone. I've been letting him sleep in my room each night so I can keep an eye on him and be there if he needs to get up or if he needs pain medication. He has a hard time getting up after he's been lying down. Anyway, Mike is stuck sleeping in Carson's room while Carson sleeps in ours because Mike cannot sleep if one of the kids is with us. Tonight I told Carson I think he can sleep in his own bed, and he started to have a tantrum, so Mike and I agreed to let him sleep in our room one more night, but he had to promise to sleep in his own bed tomorrow. It's probably better for him to sleep in my room tonight anyway since his room is a mess right now. I wouldn't want him tripping and falling during the night if he needed to get up to use the bathroom.

It's been a week since we started implementing some different ways of dealing with Carson and so far it's working great. His behavior has been greatly improved. Now, I realize that part of the reason he's been a bit calmer is because he hasn't felt great, but I can still tell that things are working better.

Tonight right before he fell asleep he asked me what "one of a kind" means. I told him what it means and he said, "I am one of a kind," and I said, "You certainly are one of a kind, and I love that there is no one else just like you and you are mine." Then he fell asleep.