Painful Learning Experiences

I apologize for the lengthy post, but this one is priceless!

I'm sure we are not the only parents that battle the cleanup issue with young children! Let me just say that this little lesson MM learned this past week was almost as difficult on Mom as it was on her. I call her my tornado because she can come home to a perfectly clean room and within minutes she has pulled everything out and scattered it all over the floor. For those of you who have never been to our house, we have a great playroom, I mean a fabulous playroom that is huge and full of anything and everything that any child could possibly want. To say we have been over-indulgent when it comes to toys is a huge understatement. It is actually embarrassing to me! But, with grandparents who buy them whatever they want (and if they buy one child something, they have to buy the other child something as well), a daddy who travels a good bit (and always promises to bring a surprise - I keep telling him that they would be happy with a pack of gum or candy, no need for extravagant gifts), and well, yes I admit it, a mom who loves to buy stuff (anything!). Our playroom is strategically located off to the side of our kitchen so that I can keep an eye on them and continue my job as a referee without being too far away. With that location, it is really hard for me to NOT complain about the mess because I do have to look at it EVERYDAY.ALL DAY! I always said that I could just close the door and ignore it, BUT WHO REALLY DOES THAT ANYWAY?

So, with all of that said, I have been threatening my oldest tornado MM that if she didn't start keeping the play room clean that I was going to throw anything and everything away if it was not in its place, at a moments notice! Now picture this, I've made a deal with MM that she could wait and clean up after dinner: 1) so that Anna can help because she was napping and 2) she thought it would take FOREVER! (her words). Dinner comes and goes and I remind them both that it is time to clean the playroom. You would have thought that I had just sentenced them to solitary confinement for life! I go and get a huge yard size trash bag and go in the playroom instructing them to put anything that is on the floor in the bag. Ok, so I may have lost my cool a tiny bit, but I was determined to make a point here. MM breaks down into a total meltdown complete with real tears, sobbing, etc. She tells me (between sobs) that I was throwing away her favorite Hanna Montana doll and Miley Cyrus doll and Bluejeans the horse. . .oh my! After making a clean sweep of the toys on the floor, I marched that trash bag right outside to the . . . third garage! It broke my heart watching her have to throw away her truly fave toys - I actually got a little teary-eyed watching her so distraught. I know, we/she shouldn't be that attached to "stuff" and I try not to make a big deal.

Anna, on the other hand, thought it was just great fun to throw all of the toys away. She actually got waaayy too much joy out of it. I'm not sure why: 1)she is a tiny bit of a clean freak and likes to have things neat and tidy 2)none of the toys being thrown away were hers or 3)she just enjoyed watching the torture that her big sister was experiencing. I'll let you decide that one, but I'm leaning more towards the 3rd option.

You ask, how long did I let this charade go on before giving all the toys back? Oh, a whole day. I know that doesn't sound like a long time, but if you could have seen my normally happy-go-lucky child moping around, you would have done the same. But, I did turn it into a learning experience and one that we can always refer back to as a threat for future issues with a clean playroom. I betcha she never forgets this one! It was quite traumatizing for her, but if you could have seen the smiles when she walked in from school the next day and all of her thrown-away toys were on the kitchen table! And, you better believe she was more than happy to take all of her toys and carefully put them in their place in the playroom - one at a time! She was so cute later that night. She looked at me out of the blue with her little grin and said, "mom, you were just pretending when you threw my toys away, weren't you?"I sweetly replied, "Yes ma'm, but next time I really will let the garbage man take them away!"

Happy Parenting!