Fixing a Melting House

Our house is continually melting into messiness. It seems like the bigger our family gets, the faster it melts too. If Alicia and I want to keep order in the house, we have to keep picking things up and putting them away. That can take all day - really. Alicia and I realized that we can't do this anymore so we started a rule that anything left on the floors at bedtime will be thrown away after the kids go to bed. Two nights ago I did this and a whale toy of Ethan's was thrown away. He found out about it today and wailed in sorrow about the loss of his plastic toy.

I felt bad for him but Alicia and I tried to reexplain to him that we wanted the family to take better care of their things and the house. He didn't seem to get it but I'm hopeful that this will be a good learning experience for him and the rest of the kids. Alicia and I are sticking to this with the hope that it will help.