I will admit, I am not the neatest person around. My guest room/office still has clutter, though I am slowly weeding out unneeded paper and clothing. Less is definitely more, and I often wonder why I'm hanging on to certain items or papers. Luckily I have to get the guest room ready for 2 separate family visits, and I always work best with a deadline, so the rest of the mess will be gone by the end of June.
So I may not be the best role model. But I have no idea where the uncontrollable slob gene showed up in Princess' DNA. I have dubbed her room "the clutter witness protection program." Need to lose something fast? Make it disappear? Unrecognizable? Never to be found again? Put it in Princess' room. I guarantee you, you will never ever see it again.
Case in point:
Tomorrow she is showing at an away horse show. First missing item: leg garter. Second missing item: sister's garter she tried on, but never returned. So now two kids have incomplete sets. But the one thing that sent me over the edge tonight was her missing show blouse. I know I washed it, I know I gave it to her. Could she find it? No.
What we found:
- Between her bed and the wall - dirty laundry, including multiple socks and underwear, stuffed animals and random paper
- Between the end of her bed and her hope chest - more dirty laundry, water bottles (verboten), food (even more verboten), hangers, books, her digital camera, more random papers
- The corner between the end of her bed and her closet - piles of stuffed animals, yet more dirty laundry, more random papers, books, toys, broken jewelry making kit, and a ton of other crap including more forbidden drink and food containers.
What we did not find? Her show blouse.
Two hours later, after much yelling, tears, and searching, we finally located the missing blouse: behind her dresser. Yep, always the first place I look for items that should hang in her closet. Sigh.
I'm at my wit's end. I don't ask for perfection. All I want is her floor to be clear so we can walk in there without breaking something. Dirty laundry in the hamper. Random papers in the trash. That's it - she can deal with the rest.
Is that too much to ask? Please, enlighten me. Because I'm ready to completely purge her room except for a bed. If she's lucky.
Help!
8 comments:
love the bear on the ladder.
Is she organized with school stuff?
The photo is a stock photo, but the mess is pretty close to what her room is like. She is semi-organized with her school stuff, partly because school requires subject folders. But she forgets things, leaves things around. She can't do homework on her desk because of all the stuff on it. It's just frustrating.
Ha, ha! I was just wondering if that was her actual room! :) My one daughter is a pack rat. I think that's what creates the problem..saving everything. At least one Saturday a month I ask all of the kids to come up with 10 items for charity...they usually have more, but if I do it monthly, they are able to get rid of some of the stuff before it piles up.
Yep - forget that "don't care what other people think". If anyone ever saw my kids rooms I just don't know how long it would take them to turn me into CPS. I try not to go upstairs but once a week. And yeah, my head spins when they can't find the one thing we need now - the leotard - the library book - etc....
It's everyone and everywhere. I, too, am not particularly neat - but I live in constant amazement that my daughter (17) can be so concerned with her hair and yet live in the middle of a garbage heap (AKA her room).
This is why God invented doors.
Keep hers closed!
About that show blouse? I'm surprised it was behind her dresser. I would have looked behind the dryer first!
Every night, I have to remind my oldest son to put his dirty clothes in the hamper in his closet. Every frickin' night. He'll tell me he has, but then I go up there to wish him goodnight and find it strewn all over the room, attached to the other junk he hasn't put back where it belongs.
Last week, Tool Man and I spent four hours in each boy's room. I pretty much threatened their lives once we crawled out of hell, leaving it a shinier, more organized place, and told them I'd not put up with the mess we did again. So...I give it another week.
It's funny because it's true... I remember one of my brothers had about the worst half-room imaginable (he shared with my other brother, who wasn't too bad). This, of course, would lead to unimaginable stress and crankiness, and at one point there was actually a masking tape line down the middle of the room! There's no insurance that your kids won't be messy, sure, but how does the gene show up in one sibling but not the other? Fascinating...
Jerry
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