True Form: Coming Clean
"I can't clean my room, I'll get tired!"
This came from the innocent mouth of my 5 year old girl. This type of statement would have me dropping my shoulders, exhaling all of the air from my lungs while my eye roll up to find the patience to deal with this obvious issue.
"Well, what can I say to that, it makes me tired just looking at this mess. We've talked about this before sweetheart. You have to learn to put your toys away when you are done with them."
"But I'm never done with them."
"..." my mind raced for a response to this unfortunate dilemma. That was a good answer.
"Well, what about this stuff?" I flipped my foot at the lose scraps of construction paper, a mass of knotted yarn in various colors, some loose beads, 2 popsicle sticks and a smattering of balloon shaped confetti that was strewn around the floor of her room. The room that I tediously painted sky blue from about hip height to the ceiling. The bottom portion painted as fluffy clouds. From the clouds and to the ceiling as well were the larger than life, hand-painted Mickey and Minnie that stood on each side of her bed. Two birds from Cinderella on the far wall and intentionally crooked cartoon window frames around each window of the room. Glow in the dark star stickers filled the ceiling and portions of the walls. It was a masterpiece and _it_ made me tired. So tired in fact, that I wasn't about to allow it to be a part of the 'non-viewing' area of our home. The areas where guests were detoured away from so that they couldn't judge us on our housekeeping. So I brought up all the work I did on those walls...or was about to when she said:
"Daddy, those are arts and craps"
"???...Yes...yes, they are. And that's a problem because, where it is right now, it actually looks like artsy crap on your floor." Of course that's where I was given back my '???'
So she countered once again "erm....I can't clean my room because I don't know how."
Again, fair enough "Well, what _do_ you know how to do?"
"I can...make my bed" At least she admitted she was capable of _something_.
So I thought about it for a moment, I put everything that was on the floor up on the bed, dusted my hands off, and told her to make her bed.
Then I walked out of the room.
This came from the innocent mouth of my 5 year old girl. This type of statement would have me dropping my shoulders, exhaling all of the air from my lungs while my eye roll up to find the patience to deal with this obvious issue.
"Well, what can I say to that, it makes me tired just looking at this mess. We've talked about this before sweetheart. You have to learn to put your toys away when you are done with them."
"But I'm never done with them."
"..." my mind raced for a response to this unfortunate dilemma. That was a good answer.
"Well, what about this stuff?" I flipped my foot at the lose scraps of construction paper, a mass of knotted yarn in various colors, some loose beads, 2 popsicle sticks and a smattering of balloon shaped confetti that was strewn around the floor of her room. The room that I tediously painted sky blue from about hip height to the ceiling. The bottom portion painted as fluffy clouds. From the clouds and to the ceiling as well were the larger than life, hand-painted Mickey and Minnie that stood on each side of her bed. Two birds from Cinderella on the far wall and intentionally crooked cartoon window frames around each window of the room. Glow in the dark star stickers filled the ceiling and portions of the walls. It was a masterpiece and _it_ made me tired. So tired in fact, that I wasn't about to allow it to be a part of the 'non-viewing' area of our home. The areas where guests were detoured away from so that they couldn't judge us on our housekeeping. So I brought up all the work I did on those walls...or was about to when she said:
"Daddy, those are arts and craps"
"???...Yes...yes, they are. And that's a problem because, where it is right now, it actually looks like artsy crap on your floor." Of course that's where I was given back my '???'
So she countered once again "erm....I can't clean my room because I don't know how."
Again, fair enough "Well, what _do_ you know how to do?"
"I can...make my bed" At least she admitted she was capable of _something_.
So I thought about it for a moment, I put everything that was on the floor up on the bed, dusted my hands off, and told her to make her bed.
Then I walked out of the room.
posted by toonbug at 6:42 AM
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