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Mine are only 11 months and they make such a huge mess. I try to get them to put away three things before naps, but that just means me making a huge deal of throwing things in a basket as fast as I can while they pull everything out again. I'm herding cats over here!

Some days are worse than others. What I learned is that I have to enforce cleaning up, otherwise it just gets out of control.

The biggest thing I learned to relax about is the organization and how things get put away. Color coded bins just aren't happening, but a big bin with trains, duplex, food will work, so I go with it.

My 2 year old daughter does pull things out and usually forgets about them. But when she gets in the right mood, she likes to put things away. One. Piece. At. A. Time. And when putting away duplex or something similar, she makes sure all the pieces are pulled apart before they go in the box. The other day, bed time was 15 minutes late because I can't tell her NOT to clean up...

Yup. It's gotten so much worse now that he really plays with toys instead of just bangs them around. And when I do try to actually clean something, like cleaning the fridge, he is meantime reorganizing the house!

My house is covered in a fine layer of baby socks and toy cars most days!

Yes. Our house is an absolute cluster-you-know-what every day. They take out all their toys, throw them around, pull out pots & pans, open up all the cupboards, push out chairs & climb on the table, crumble up their snacks, purposely pour out their drinks to play in it *sigh* It's nonstop. Having two 17 mo olds is messy & exhausting.
Every evening it's cleaned up...then, the little monsters wake up and destroy the house yet again.

It sure can get messy. But being 2 we started a couple months or so ago that he has to put his toys away before bath time. It can be painful some nights because everything has to have a place.

On the weekends I try and get him to put things away as I notice he is done playing with it.

@mrskc: I think 5 toddlers really trash the place!

DD makes a mess but I try to at least pick up her room nightly before she goes to bed. We don't keep many toys in the living room for this same reason! I also have the same method as @looch: and everything loose goes into a couple bins.

Books and "pretty" toys have spots on the bookshelf.

Oh yes!!! E can trash the place in 30 seconds flat. Our house frequently looks as though we've been burgled.

A typical scene looks like this:

- Walk into the lounge together, first thing in the morning. E immediately pulls all cushions off the sofa and chair and throws them onto the floor.

- Demands TV. Throws the remotes into the centre of the room in disgust when I say it's not TV time yet.

- Mummy goes into the kitchen to make some toast. E proceeds to:

- Empty four medium sized toy baskets out all over the floor and spread them around the room.

- Refuse breakfast but make off with a bit of toast which is broken into three crumby pieces and thrown onto the sofa and floor.

- Drip milk onto the sofa and then throw milk cup in amongst the toys on the floor.

- Take off slippers and socks and distribute evenly in amongst the toys, along with mine and DH's shoes (one pair each live along the side of the sofa) and some of DH's dirty socks that he must have left stuffed somewhere (ugh).

- Grab the landline phone receiver, decide it's for mummy who is in the kitchen. Pull the receiver as far as it will go until the curly cord can't take any more and the phone pings off the table and lands in the middle of the room.

- Mummy finishes rinsing the breakfast dishes and walks into the lounge - and can't believe her eyes!!!