The Dining Room Table

Organizing a household filled with five children, two parents, and one super-fun aunt is akin to putting order to a 3 year-old's scribbles.  Now that three of the five kids are in school, I'm finding that keeping my dining room table in order is ridiculously difficult.  The table, on any given day, is a school desk, mail catcher, art room, random-crap-collector... and, oh yeah, we eat at it as well.

It's insane.

While I wish it would look like this:

(gloriously unrealistic dining room)

It almost always looks more like this:

(hodge podge of life dining room table *note hotwheels under the table*)

We normally use wipe-able placemats for everyone but whether or not someone finds time to wipe them after every meal is a crapshoot. And since when do my 8, 5, and 3 year olds have any clue that food and drinks should stay within the boundaries of the mat anyways?!

I've tried a pretty tablecloth... but if I'm lucky, it lasts approximately 24 hours before having to be hurled into the laundry with some juice, marker, or food stain.

So I'm looking for ideas. I'd like to preserve what's left of the pretty-ness of my dining room table, but I'm annoyed with every method I've tried. Anyone have something tried and true for me??

National Blog Posting Month #NaBloPoMo

Honestly, I don't even know if #NaBloPoMo still exists. But it used be that November was the month where bloggers strove to post something every single day. I know I will likely fail at this... and seeing as how I nearly failed the first day because it is 10:05 p.m. and I am currently writing about nothing... I already ALMOST failed. But... hey... as Yoda says, "Do or do not. There is no try."

So I'm shooting for "do." At least for today.

Here's to the possibility of more blog posts in November than I've written all year.

Wahoo!