I've never made it a secret that my house is a cluttered disaster. I have way too much stuff and nowhere to put it. Even if I had a place for everything, I still have too much stuff. My kids have grown out of clothes and they sit in bags in my crawl space, I bought toys on sale to give later and never gave them out, I bought and bought and have only succeeded in being a few boxes away from an episode of hoarders. When I look back at my decisions over the past few years I generally feel like I was an idiot. That's all there was to it. I thought I needed or wanted so many things, but really, I neither needed nor wanted them. They did nothing to make me happy, they didn't make my kids happier. Worse, I feel like I did them a disservice by getting so much crap. They never learned to value or respect their toys. Now I not only need to dig myself out of my own personal hole, but I have to reclaim my house. In essence, I have two giant chasms to climb out of.
The good news, as I see it, is that my kids are still young enough to be retrained if you will. It's not too late for them to learn the value of their possessions, to learn to respect their toys, and to begin taking care of the things they still get to keep. Goodness knows, I don't want them to continue down the path we are currently on. It makes me so angry when they destroy a toy or a book, when they color on the wall or basically act like destructive children. I know it's my own fault, which probably makes it worse. No one wants to actually admit that their kids failings are really their own. I need to teach them to do better, to be better. In order to do that, I need to do better. I need to be better.
I started this process recently, I took my first steps on the path to freedom. After my evening walk, I seem to have a lot more energy and I generally want to clean something. A few nights ago, I walked in the door around 10:45pm after my walk, (we are night owls around here) and I remembered I needed to change the sheets on my daughters bed. See, the night before, Aubrey wet the bed in the middle of the night. Being the awesome mother that I am, I took off her wet clothes, wiped her down with a towel, put on a pull-up, put a towel down on the wet spot, sent Aubrey back to bed and went right back to sleep myself... Like I said, I'm an awesome mom. Anyway, I decided to change the sheets on both beds. When I pulled up the mattress and saw the pile of crap under their beds, I made an executive decision. We were going to clean their room... And by "we" I mean "they" were going to clean their room and I was going to supervise. I moved Aubrey's bed out from the wall first, brought in a big white garbage bag and a big bag for toys. The instructions were simple. Garbage in the garbage bag, toys to in a toy bag to be put away later, and clothes in the hamper.
It is rather embarrassing to admit that I hadn't cleaned their room in a very long time, and it was ridiculous. There were bread crusts, bread sticks, half-eaten peanut butter sandwiches, crackers, water bottles, fruit-snack wrappers, the disgusting garbage list goes on. See, embarrassing, but I promised to be real, so there you have it. Then there were the toys, I mean honestly, it was crazy how much crap they fit under a toddler bed. I made them do it all. They were even excited about it! They had to pick up the garbage, clean up the toys, the only thing I did was provide new toy bags when the old ones filled up and vacuum when they made the floor clean enough to do so. We spent a little over an hour the first night cleaning their room, making it about midnight when we finished up. The kids were really proud of themselves, and I was really proud of them. The next day we did the other half of the room. Jayden wasn't quite as excited to do the rest of the room, in fact, when I told him it was time he replied with "you've got to be kidding me?" Hmm, I wonder where he heard that line! Regardless of his attitude, he cooperated with only a small reminder about losing his video games for the rest of the day if he didn't cooperate... It's amazing how well that works for motivating him! Aubrey just likes to be my helper most of the time, so motivating her is less of a struggle when phrased that way.
The room isn't spotless by any stretch, but it is much better than it was. More importantly, lessons were learned by myself and the kids. For the kids, they learned that they prefer to have a clean room, they learned food on the floor is gross and they haven't even asked if they could take their peanut butter sandwiches upstairs since that night. They learned that it really sucks when a toy they liked gets thrown away because its broken and it's broken because they didn't take care of it. They learned that momma isn't just going to do it for them. If I've taught them anything through my stubbornness in regards to their playroom and bedroom, it is that if they make the mess, they are going to clean it up or they have to suffer in their own filth. I learned that they are ready to have that responsibility. I learned they are perfectly capable of cleaning their own messes themselves with only a little guidance on my part. I learned a little more patience with them and to make cleaning their messes kind of fun.
Now I just need to apply those principles to the playroom. It is a disaster and has been for over a year now. I have refused to touch it since the day they destroyed it. If I'm honest, I've actually tried to clean up a little a few times but each time I only last a few minutes before I'm so angry I have to stop. I'm not very pleasant when my temper is unleashed. I don't like that personality trait in myself, I have quite a temper and controlling it seems to take a lot of work again. In my attempt to be better than I have been or to keep myself from behaving like an irrational tyrant, I shied away from trigger situations i.e., cleaning the playroom. Yes, I know the room is ridiculous. Yes, the mess makes me angry, but the kids made that mess and they will be the ones to clean it up. They are finally old enough to be able to do it with minimal assistance from me. I don't expect everyone to understand or agree with my approach, like I've said before, I have to do what works for me and so far this seems to do just that!
I've started my thousand mile journey to freedom and I'm finally making progress one step at a time.
Here are some pictures of BJ's birthday party at his parents house over the weekend. It was a great night.
Kids thought they could climb the mommy tree at BJ's birthday party
Happy Birthday Daddy!
Awe we like each other... And then there's the "special" brother Matt...
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