Hard Lessons

Many of you know me well enough to know that I like to keep a clean house. I can't stand clutter or unvacuumed floors. I hate seeing dirty laundry in the hampers and wash clothes as fast as my kids can wear them. I have a sickness. And I am available for rent if any of you need a room or two tidied.

Well Genavieve and Skylar have been testing me for the last couple of weeks in the clean department. I can't stand walking by their room because it is in a constant state of clutter. I ask nicely, I scream, I try to come up with creative ways to make room cleaning fun. And it never works.

A few weeks ago I decided that I would stop stressing about clean rooms for a while. I told the girls they could do whatever they wanted in their rooms all week long, and then Thursday evening I would do a "room check"... yeah kinda military style, but I was desperate.

The girls had strict instructions that their doors had to stay closed so that I couldn't see what was being tossed willy-nilly on their floors throughout the week. And come Thursday, it all better be cleaned MOM STYLE. (and if you live in this house, you are very well versed on what MOM STYLE is... the words perfection and squeaky come to mind)

Well for two weeks, this method seemed to work. I gritted my teeth every time I caught a glimpse into their room, but Thursday nights it was pretty decent.

But then Gena and Skylar started slipping. They couldn't meet their deadline, they couldn't walk in the room due to the mess... they were taking advantage of my very generous system. So they lost privileges. Daily room cleaning became part of their everyday once again. Yeah I know... I'm a mean mom.

Well yesterday, as I was going about my routine, collecting laundry and dusting and what not... I stumbled across an area that I thought to be my daughters' room. Dirty and clean clothes alike were scattered about the floor. Every toy imaginable was pulled out, as if they were having some sort of indoor yard sale. The Barbie and Bratz toy box seemed to have exploded is some twisted naked doll orgy.

I was livid. My psycho mom button switched, and I literally had to step out of the room and cool myself off.

Now for those of you that are thinking I am blowing things out of proportion... stop and think. When you were growing up, did you get to make the rules of your household? Nope, me either. I just had to abide by them. And my children are spoiled rotten.. they don't want for anything... and hence they have no respect for their belongings or their space. I don't have many rules... but a clean room is something I insist upon. So stop judging.

So after my head stopped spinning, I grabbed paper and pencil and wrote a brief note that I taped to their door, and locked it. It read:

Dear Skylar and Gena -
You no longer have a room.
Your father and I will discuss what will happen
to your room and your belongings when
he gets home.
-Mom

When the girls got home, Skylar turned on the waterworks and Gena pretended she didn't care. Where will we sleep? How will we get clothes? I ignored their questions and let them sweat it out until 7pm.

So when Ken arrived home the girls told him what happened. He proceeded with one of his famous lectures and ventured up to their room to see the damage.

What happened next, even I could not have imagined.

Ken got up to their room and surveyed the mess. And then he began opening drawers... one by one he emptied each drawer all over the floor. He then dumped the toy box and moved on to the entertainment center where the girls have a collection of DVD's and videos that rivals Blockbuster. He began tossing those too. At one point, Ryker got clocked with a flying DVD. He thought the piles of stuff all over the floor were hilarious. Gena and Skylar, not so much.

I stood in the door way with my mouth wide open. Was he trying to give me a seizure? I felt the OCD neuron in my brain begin to twitch... The girls were bawling.

After he finished his rampage (all done very calmly might I add) he told the girls that they had a choice. They could either clean up their room in the hour left until bedtime and KEEP IT CLEAN or they could go get some trash bags and take care of it that way.

Needless to say they cleaned... crying all the while.

Ken and I exited to our room and I busted out laughing.

"What was that?" I asked.

"I came up with that on the fly." He responded.

Obviously he was proud of the point he had proven, although I was still a little unsure. But his scare tactics worked... those girls cleaned for an hour straight and the room was squeaky perfect clean at the end of it.

Skylar was upset. Gena was mad. If you know my girl, you know she doesn't cry for anything. But she cried the entire time... not because she was upset or sad... but because she was PISSED. I went in their halfway through and tried to calm the situation down a bit. I explained that some lessons you need to learn in life are hard lessons to learn. This was one of those times... the girls needed to learn to obey the rules, respect their belongings, and take care of their space.

Remind me never to fuss about the girls not taking out the trash.... lord knows where that would end up if Ken is trying to teach another "hard lesson"!!