Cleaning Up

I never thought the day would come. It took eight years, but today when I told Andy to clean the play room he just did it. Okay, well, Charlie told the kids last night that he expected it clean when he got home from work and anything left out on the floor would be his to sell or throw away or do whatever he pleased. It wasn't the part that they cleaned without whining or complaining or yelling, it was that they actually cleaned it without me having to tell them how to clean.

Years ago, when I would tell Andy to clean up he would just sit there. He had no idea how to generically clean. If I said, "put all the pieces to that game away" or "put all the blocks in the basket" he could do it without a problem. If I told him to clean up, he didn't know what to do. I asked a friend who had an older daughter and she told me it took a long time for them to understand the concept of cleaning. Until then, I would have to go item by item and tell them to pick it up. What a beating. But that's what we've done. "Pick up all the cards and put them in their container", "pick up all the Little People and put them in the Little People bucket", "pick up all the Polly Pockets and put them in the Polly Pockets container." You get the idea.

Almost everything has a place, bucket or container. I labeled and put pictures on all the containers and buckets I could find. Before the kids could even read they were labeled. I took pictures of all the toys that went into each bucket and then put that picture on the front of the bucket so the kids knew where the toys went. They got it, but friends would always put them in the wrong place (sorry, that's another rant). But if I told them to "pick up" they had no idea where anything went.

Today was a different story. I told the kids they had to pick up like Daddy asked. Sarah went upstairs to clean their room. Andy stayed in the playroom. I urged him to engage Amanda and make her help too. He did, and she did. When I was finally done getting dinner ready I walked in to help and he was almost done. I didn't have to explain anything or tell him where anything went. It was all just put away where it was supposed to go. The same thing happened with the bedroom. Amazing. Finally, a stress-free cleaning. Now what am I going to complain about?

Hopefully this will continue and only get better. Maybe they'll start cleaning without us asking...a girl can dream, right?