Creative Discipline or Creative Interior Design?

Some of my son's favorite toys are of course his one thousand piece train sets, then his ten thousand set lego train set and not to be outdone, his one hundred thousand piece whatever train toy set. He is so into creating, building and playing with all these little toy pieces that sometimes it becomes a big problem. We can't get him to do anything ELSE! He simply won't stop. I think he gets this from his old man. We both have addictive behaviors when it comes to something we are passionate. We get very agitated and frustrated if we are interupted or even distracted. We are not to be disturbed because an artform is being created! Every inch is crucial and every angle makes a difference. I was in to building futuristic aero dynamic space fighter planes and I know what goes on in his mind as he lays the tracks and creates a whole new train track neighborhood or community. Once he's done, he gets so excited jumping up and down trying to win our praises.

The problem is sometimes, his creativity conflicts with other important events that take place on a normal day. For example: taking a bath, going to sleep or even sometimes dinner! We have a house rule and that is we always put away our toys when it is time for the next thing on our schedule, like dinner. However, my little guy seems to prefer leaving his thousands of little pieces of toy everywhere and therefore we have to resort to "time out." No, not time out for my little guy, but rather "time-out" for his toys which he leaves behind. We live in a small 2 bedroom apartment, and finding a spot that our little guy can't reach is sometimes challenging because he can be very resourceful when you are not paying attention. We ended up timing out his toys by placing them on the very top of our shelves, our kitchen cabinets, our fireplace..or wherever we can find a flat surface that is beyond our son's reach.

Our friends came by to pay us a visit the other day and the funny thing they told us was the fact that they loved how we had decorated our home with toys everywhere on eye-level! And each time they come, our place looks a bit different depending on the kinds of toys being timed-out! Like today, the theme of our decoration is... Legos! Discipline for our son AND creative interior design, one stone two birds!