My most expensive goal this month is one I’m not even sure is a great idea. I want the boys to have a shared bedroom.
They’ve been asking for years, and they usually sleep together on the weekend. They spent the past summer sleeping in Mikey’s full-sized bed. They are the couple from college who is unofficially living together.
I’m worried Nico will be too messy for Mikey. I’m worried Mikey will keep Nico up with his late night reading. I’m worried they won’t sleep as much, or as well, which is the case when they share a bed. I’m worried I’m going to go through a lot of time and expense when I should leave things well enough alone.
And, yes, I’m worried I won’t have the space to cram all their stuff in one room. It’s the closet space that has me nervous, so I decided to tackle their shoes and clothes. I started with the shoes since it seemed easier.
Nico had a huge growth spurt last year. He was in a size 5 for all of a couple of months, and his feet grew along with him. It happened so fast, and I procrastinate so very well, that I never purged the old shoes before buying him new shoes. In fact, there are several pairs of hand me downs from Mikey that Nico never wore!
I don’t know if it’s him or his age, but Nico is a bit of a slob. I can’t go through his shoe cubbies without expecting to find trash or something odd. When I went to his classroom open house in September, the teacher encouraged us to go through our child’s desk and look at their new folders. I never found Nico’s folder, but I did find a bag of cheerios, an old banana peel, and an important memo from August.
This (and the school shoes he keeps in the basket) is all that still fits him! Notice one flip-flop is missing. Classic Nico. I’m sure it’s outside under a bush. He hates wearing shoes and socks…and clothes, really. I picture Nicholas spending his 20s living at the beach, frequenting establishments where shoes and shirts are optional. The first thing he does when he gets home is to take off his shoes, socks, and shirt. He’s a total surfer boy–living outside the desert and having only been to the beach a handful of times.
I reminded myself that he is “Shoeless Nico” because for a split second I panicked when I saw what was left. I suddenly worried I was a bad mom for not buying him more shoes, giving him more selection, buying him fancier apparel.
He has church shoes, school shoes, play shoes (not pictured), and flip-flops. He also has new soccer cleats, and once I cleaned out Mikey’s shoes, he had slippers, another pair of play shoes, and baseball cleats. He’s good.
It’s me that got wrapped up in the wrong kind of thinking.
Mikey now has school shoes, church shoes, a couple of play shoes, and flip-flops he can’t find in his shoe drawer. Once I buy him some replacement slippers, he’ll be good, too.
Once I go through their closets and purge what they don’t need or don’t use, I suspect the issue of space wont be as big a concern in a shared room.
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I purged my boys’ clothes last night but didn’t even think of shoes, for some reason. It’s on the list!
The funny thing is I think I could get rid of all but 2 pairs and our lives would not change in the slightest. They each have a pair of sandals that sits by the front door that they wear every single day. I can’t think of the last time either of them wore proper shoes…but that doesn’t stop us from having at least a dozen pairs.
Nico would live in flip-flops if he could, so I can see us down to only two pairs, too!
Heck, my kids are lucky if they have three pairs of shoes to choose between. They have runners (I’m guessing these are the same as your ‘play shoes’), and once they get to high school, they have school shoes. If they’re lucky, they also have flip flops and slippers. Now that I think of it, though, we have an entire shoebasket full of trashed shoes that both they and I know they never wear… why oh why are they still there?? I’m going to throw them out *right now*.
Oh, and my middle stepson is the same sort of slob. Over the years I have thrown out more than one thing he owns due to ‘forgotten’ now-rotten food. I don’t think it’s a stage!
I’m afraid Nico’s stage isn’t a stage, either. :-/
That’s how I knew I had to clean out Nico’s shoe cubbies. He spent more time rummaging through them looking for shoes he could wear than he did putting on his shoes.
Shoes are such an unruly bunch–great job wrangling them in! And your quote is spot on . . .
The post that introduced me to you was the shoe drawer post last year, I thought it was a great idea…and I have yet to make one, or two. We have a shoe basket and it’s rare if the daily worn shoes ever make it in there. I look forward to seeing the boy’s bedroom when you’re done. So nice they love each other so much! Have a great weekend!
That shoe drawer was one of my extremely few, but proud, DIY moments. Mikey still uses it, as you can see. :)
My kids usually have about 3 pairs of shoes (one dress, sneaker, sandal). Oh, and we have to have boots b/c we live in the Midwest. That’s it. My oldest needs a new size almost every season b/c she has huge feet and I decided early on that we would only buy the minimal (no special fun shoes). Honestly she hasn’t seemed to mind. My second doesn’t mind in the slightest. He wore the same pair of sandals every single day all summer long and by the end they were worn out and out grown.
I think I lucked out having boys. They don’t seem to need, or care, about shoes. Plus, buy shoes are usually so ugly!
Good luck to both you and to Nico & Mikey during that shared room period. Now that you’ve discovered Nico’s slovenly ways, you might approach that with Mikey and make sure it doesn’t bother him to share a room with someone who might not pick up after himself. Then again, it’s a good learning experience to live with someone who’s habits are out of your comfort zone and figure out how to communicate/collaborate with them.
I’m sticking with the learning experience angle. I hope it works out!
Do you have plans for the other room? In several homes, we lumped all four boys into one room and then stored their clothes and toys in another room. It made bedtimes quite peaceful because the BED-room was clean. The clothes and toys room, of course, was a different story, but it worked really well. That might be your plan B?
This is a really good idea. We planned to use it as a guest room with maybe a place for me to work, but I’ve considered the toyroom before. My only hesitation is that I wont be motivated to have them clean it, since it will be out of sight/mind.
Excepting my youngest boy’s infancy, we’ve always bunked them together. We bought them a bunk bed (I’d rather listen to free-form jazz than change the top bunk’s sheets) and they sleep, mushed together, on the bottom bunk. Ben is almost 7 and Gabe is 8, so they’ve begun to run out of room. Peeking in on them makes me so happy.
Hah! That’s why we aren’t going with bunk beds! They look like so much work, and I tremble at the thought of cleaning it in the middle of the night after sickness!
Firstly, great job on wrangling the shoes! We’ve got our fair share of shoes, even though they always stay at the front door, they certainly aren’t display ready.
S&O have shared a room since the beginning – but their shoes have never made their way upstairs. Stella is messy, as she just isn’t a detail sort of girl. Ollie is tidy, he sees it and puts it in its place. I’ve really had to ‘teach’ Stella about tidying/cleaning, it certainly hasn’t come naturally, but she really, really likes checklists so that works for us. Ollie (the younger one) stays up later than Stella, who likes to wake-up early to read each morning (5am). They both go to bed at 7pm, but do fall asleep and wake at different times.
They both wouldn’t have it any other way, and love sharing a room – we’ll see how that goes in a few more years, but so far, so good. Good luck with the sharing of rooms, it is a big move, but your boys really do seem to want to do it. There’s something really special about sharing a room with your siblings.
Well, that’s encouraging! Hopefully Nico and Mikey will get on as well as Stella and Ollie!
I’m a fully functioning adult with 4 pair of shoes. No one notices. =D
Instead of buying lots of shoes for different things, we invest in really good sneaks for the kids. We like the Tsukihoshis. The price seems a bit much but when you consider how many different shoes they really don’t need.. it’s not so bad. Plus the benefits of well-washing sneaks that support their growing, running feet far outweighs needing 20 pairs for little ones. I think we do sneaks, hiking sandals, boots and dress shoes. Four- there you have it.
I’ve never heard of that brand before! I will have to remember it when it’s time to buy school shoes next year. I love to wash sneakers, so I like that they are washer friendly.
He’s going to grow up to be like my D, who has five pairs of shoes: tennies, flip-flops, casual boat shoes, black dressier shoes, brown dressier shoes. He’s a wonderful man to share a closet with :)
My husband is the same way, and you’re right! It’s great to share a closet with him. :)
My X (9) has 4 pairs of shoes:athletic shoes, dressy school uni shoes, cleats and sandals. There are usually snow boots to replace the sandals.
What would he do with more shoes?
My daughter (4) on the other hand has a zillion pairs of shoes and would like more
See, I lucked out with the boys. It’s a lot easier to have a couple of boy shoes. They’re mostly ugly!
Troy outgrew all of his shoes over the summer and currently has ONE pair of sneakers.
It snowed last night and he has no boots, I am filled with shame. And as my punishment, I have to take a four year old shoe shopping.
Hahaha!
My kids all have my family’s Extremely Wide Feet And High Insteps, so nothing from Target or Payless ever fits. I pay a lot of money for shoes for them, so they each get two pairs of sneakers, and now that we’ve moved out here, one pair of sandals. I have done this for all three kids since infancy. (I will admit that Princess gets a pair of Mary Janes, too.)
We are attending a wedding as a family and I was all ack, what will they wear on their feet, but Payless had wide black dress shoes that fit (sorta kinda good enough for 8 hours, I probably wouldn’t make them wear them as an every day shoe). I really didn’t want to pay $75 per kid for a pair of dress shoes they would wear exactly once.
I’ve been to Payless before for kid’s dress shoes, and for the same reason!