Sunday, June 25, 2006

Summer Cleaning

One of my goals for Duncan this Summer is for his room to be clean. Yeah, I know, that's a never-ending battle but hey, I've got him home every day for three months. On days we don't have to run errands or go to White Water, I make him work for a couple of hours in his room. I discovered over Spring Break that it makes the room cleaning process a lot less acrimonious if I have him break it up into chunks rather than tell him he has to clean it by the end of the day.

Unfortunately my son isn't a self-starter when it comes to cleaning. Give him a video game and he'll figure out everything about it in no time flat, but ask him to sort through the crap covering his floor and he's at a loss. This weekend I braved the pit and waded in with him. I get the satisfaction of chewing him out while I sort and organize. I can also direct him to various piles and get him started.

Let me tell you, cleaning a ten year old's room is made even more fun when a three year old gets into the mix. There we are, surrounded by bits and pieces of toys, I'm alternately sighing at the state of his room and griping at Duncan about how he needs to take better care of his stuff. Max (our dog) loves to be near me and he's looking in vain for a place to lay down. Cal can be found pulling an interesting treasure out of a random pile of crap and generally making a nuisance of himself. He has benefitted from the cleaning and inherited a bunch of toys Duncan no longer plays with. Yes, I realize this isn't going to help me any when it comes time to make Cal learn the lessons of a tidy room.

I'm shooting for us to be done with this project by the weekend. After that, I hope I can put the fear of mom into him and keep the room sort of tidy at least until the end of Summer.

Tamara

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)