Hair brush is missing. Momma's brush is the only one that can be found and on this particular day, momma's brush is buried under a quilt on Bird's bed. Only two hair bands are in the hair accessory drawer. That morning even those two are inaccessible because my husband is in the bathroom when the girls want to do their hair for school. The girls pull out their doll bin and start flinging hard and soft dolls out of the basket. The dolls have stolen the hair bands. One of the Groovy Girls, well she made her hair into four pigtails and used four of our hair bands. No wonder we can't find them. And Barbie, well she took a hair band and piece of cloth and made a dress. And in the car, three bands are shoved in a little hiding place in the handle of the door. Probably deposited there after a soccer game. And in the basement, there are four scattered in corners or under couches. Bird shot them at Bug in a moment of playfulness, or maybe revenge. There are two more in the pocket of Bug's coat; she generally departs for school with pigtails or braids and returns with her hair down. Three of the bands broke or were mysteriously stretched past the point of usefulness. And the last four, well those went to the land of missing socks and lost buttons.
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| Photo taken by my friend Stephanie at Triptych Photo |
Over a year ago, I decided to tackle the lack of responsibility regarding hair accessories. While I could lay ground rules, like no using momma's brush, I needed to help the girls get organized. My first attempt was a hobby box, with all the barrettes and bands sorted by color. Ours is now defunct but you can admire Amy's over at The Idea Room. I wish we were organize-by-color kind of people but really we too spontaneous to be good at organizing.
We live in a small house with one full size bathroom. By modern standards that bathroom is tiny. It has three 7-inch wide drawers for storage and a big space under the cabinet and that's it. The girls' room is also tiny. There was no drawer or any place safe to keep the hobby box so we set it on top of the nightstand. It made sense. The nightstand has a mirror above it . But the box would get knocked off and the lid rarely got latched. And then we had hair accessory vomit. And still the girls removed their hair accessories long before bedtime and deposited them wherever. Plus the hobby box didn't help with the multiplying headband problem.
So the search for organization continued. This summer I emptied out an oatmeal container and a container of powdered Gatorade. I cleaned them out and glue gunned blue zebra stripe scrapbook paper to the bins and a bow ( the girls LOVE animal prints). The oatmeal container was perfect for headbands. Hair clips attach to the edge and brushes or elastic headbands go inside. So does the purple carabiner that holds all the elastics bands. This system works for us, though it isn't as pretty as a the color organized hobby box, it fits our personalities. Now, it's time to establish some habits about putting the hair accessories away...any suggestions?
