ceasefire

So there's this daily battle in our house - at least once daily, sometimes more: cleaning up. Lucia HATES cleaning up SO MUCH. I hate the cycle which begins with me asking politely, then begging, then coercing and usually ends up with me yelling and/or just cleaning it up myself. This is so not fun and so not the way I want to parent, and again, I repeat: we do this every day. It's ridiculous.

Yesterday we broke the cycle and here's how we did it: Lucia decided she never wanted to clean up again ever, and it was so important to her that she never clean up again ever, that she only wanted one fancy dress-up dress and one lovie and that was it! Everything else could go! Her choice, people, not mine. At first I was really upset about it - What an ungrateful child! - and I immediately started just clearing things out. Pete gave the girls dinner and put them to bed while I scoured the room. (The girls don't sleep in that room; I do. One big reason why I like it to be at least moderately cleanish.) Of course, I didn't get rid of everything. For one thing, this is Luci's choice, not Alma-Lu's so obviously, I'm not going to get rid of all the toys. But I got rid of probably two-thirds of all the toys and kept only the toys that they really love and the things that they really use and play with. At the end of it all - it took me 5 1/2 hours - there were 3 big plastic bins of toys and stuffed animals and dress-up clothes that Pete brought down to our storage space (just in case they really can't live without them) and 4 bags of toys for Chloe's Closet and Good Will and 2 trips to the recycling bins. I was pretty ruthless and at times I was sad because a lot of that stuff brought back memories, and I was nervous that Lucia would be upset. I got the room really organized (everything has its place!) and pretty so that it would be nice for her when she came in in the morning. (dear neighbors, sorry about vacuuming at 1 am.) You know what? This girl never ceases to amaze me, she loves it. Throughout the day, I still worried that at some point it might hit her, Where is all my stuff? But no, tonight after the two-minute clean-up, she said That was so nice. She really is happy about it. She's enjoying the things she still does have. Less really is more. I think all that stuff was actually overwhelming to both girls. Luci even said that she didn't want any presents at her birthday party. She wants people to draw her a picture to hang up instead. Wow, right? Pete and I are so inspired. Now, we just need to tackle our own stuff. Mmm, n'yeah.

So, here I share with you my "after" pictures. (Although I guess I didn't take any pictures of the desk. Probably because I don't like it - a workable-for-now sidewalk find by Trashpicker Pete - and anyway, there's nothing on it but one box of crayons and a few blank pieces of paper.) It may never be this organized again. See? There's still plenty of stuff in there.