Recovering from Hurricane Autumn
Yesterday, I did the most dreaded and put-off task of all: I helped my 10 year old daughter clean her room.
To be clear, it's not a common occurrence for me to clean her room with her. Usually it's Autumn's responsibility, and the rule is that she can't make any allowance for doing other chores around the house unless her room is clean. Truth be told, though, it hasn't been clean in a LONG while.
Our newest daughter, Callie, turned a month old this week. With her birth, and the end of a long, painful pregnancy before that, our normal routine around the house kind of fell by the wayside. And Autumn's room became ever increasingly more and more messy. In defense of her laziness (ever the enabler, I am), a lot of the mess was due to her having too much stuff in too small a space. So Tim agreed to watch the younger girls while I spent a little while helping Autumn clean her room and purge it of toys, books, and things that she no longer needed or wanted.
A little while turned into 2 1/2 hours, but the final result was a sight almost long forgotten - a clean, vacuumed carpet, an empty clothes hamper, and dresser and nightstand tops that were cleared and dusted.
Autumn worked very hard right alongside me, and was actually more willing to give up her unwanted things than I was. She kept saying things like, "What would they say on Clean House?" and putting things in the piles to throw and give away. I think I was more attached to some of the things than she was! I could remember her sitting there as a younger child, playing with her ponies or reading her Disney Princess books. Nostalgia just flooded over me, but I was sensible with what I decided to keep for the younger girls and what I decided should go.
My two year old, Zoe, already has more toys that she needs or plays with, and will most likely keep accumulating them from family and friends in the future. And Zoe's toys will be passed down to Callie later, on top of the new things she'll accumulate, also. So it just isn't reasonable or practical to hand down too many things from their much older sister. And our home is not very large, so there's only so much storage space.
As dreaded as the job was, it actually turned into some good bonding time for Autumn and I. We talked, and laughed, and sang and danced to her new favorite CD, Michael Jackson, Number Ones. She got the CD for Christmas, because as silly as it sounds, in the past year or so, she's become a huge fan on Michael Jackson's old stuff. And since I grew up listening to those songs, it was fun to sing them together while we cleaned.
I'm glad to have her room cleaned, and so is she. And so is Tim, who was growing more and more irritated with tripping over her things on his way to adjust the thermostat, which is in her room.
Now I just need to get the mound of this week's clean clothes folded and put away, and the house will be back to it's normal clean and organized state!
To be clear, it's not a common occurrence for me to clean her room with her. Usually it's Autumn's responsibility, and the rule is that she can't make any allowance for doing other chores around the house unless her room is clean. Truth be told, though, it hasn't been clean in a LONG while.
Our newest daughter, Callie, turned a month old this week. With her birth, and the end of a long, painful pregnancy before that, our normal routine around the house kind of fell by the wayside. And Autumn's room became ever increasingly more and more messy. In defense of her laziness (ever the enabler, I am), a lot of the mess was due to her having too much stuff in too small a space. So Tim agreed to watch the younger girls while I spent a little while helping Autumn clean her room and purge it of toys, books, and things that she no longer needed or wanted.
A little while turned into 2 1/2 hours, but the final result was a sight almost long forgotten - a clean, vacuumed carpet, an empty clothes hamper, and dresser and nightstand tops that were cleared and dusted.
Autumn worked very hard right alongside me, and was actually more willing to give up her unwanted things than I was. She kept saying things like, "What would they say on Clean House?" and putting things in the piles to throw and give away. I think I was more attached to some of the things than she was! I could remember her sitting there as a younger child, playing with her ponies or reading her Disney Princess books. Nostalgia just flooded over me, but I was sensible with what I decided to keep for the younger girls and what I decided should go.
My two year old, Zoe, already has more toys that she needs or plays with, and will most likely keep accumulating them from family and friends in the future. And Zoe's toys will be passed down to Callie later, on top of the new things she'll accumulate, also. So it just isn't reasonable or practical to hand down too many things from their much older sister. And our home is not very large, so there's only so much storage space.
As dreaded as the job was, it actually turned into some good bonding time for Autumn and I. We talked, and laughed, and sang and danced to her new favorite CD, Michael Jackson, Number Ones. She got the CD for Christmas, because as silly as it sounds, in the past year or so, she's become a huge fan on Michael Jackson's old stuff. And since I grew up listening to those songs, it was fun to sing them together while we cleaned.
I'm glad to have her room cleaned, and so is she. And so is Tim, who was growing more and more irritated with tripping over her things on his way to adjust the thermostat, which is in her room.
Now I just need to get the mound of this week's clean clothes folded and put away, and the house will be back to it's normal clean and organized state!
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