There's a filtration system in existance that I never noticed before I had kids. It's a sort of sifting that takes places in their bedrooms, in their drawers and toy boxes. And it works like this:
1)Everything they bring home goes into the giant tossed salad on their floor-- books, clothes, stuffed animals, Sunday school papers, crayons, Polly Pocket accessories-- everything.
2) I look in their room and say something like, "How can you live like this? It's disgusting. Clean it up." They counter with, "Do we have to really clean it or just the big stuff?" To which I normally reply, "Just do a quick cleaning so you can walk across the floor."* This begins the filtration process.
3) As toys, large and small, are tossed in baskets, bins and boxes, the biggest things stay on top while the small pieces find their way down through cracks to the bottom. Scraps of paper, pony tail holders, shoes and pen lids find their way under the bed. Barbie clothes climb, of their own free will, into the sock drawer.
4)Things begin to hide in plain site. Yesterday one of the twins spent hours looking for a paint set that was sitting on her shelf.
5) Clean up day-- We scrape the top layer of the toys aside and look at what is underneath. Most of what filters to the bottom of the box is either misplaced or unloved. In our cleaning adventure this week, we hauled 3 heaping laundry baskets of store-bought sludge to the garage for donation. 2 grocery bags full went out with the garbage this morning and one basket is full of treasures that need to go in storage (handmade baby dolls, baby blankets, outgrown favorite toys and clothes)
6) Stay tuned to see what we're going to do to jazz up the now clean room.
*Their last "quick cleaning took 7 hours and was back to its original cluttered state in less than a day, which prompted the thorough cleaning this week.
2 comments:
We adults too have our sludge piles to deal with ... for me, it is hidden away in the garage. I can't seem to part with boxes. Too many years spent moving from one place to the next I suspect ... always keeping those nice boxes "just in case".
And I won't even mention how much "stuff" has found its way into my closets. Out of sight ... out of mind.
Say, maybe there's a budding business here. Do you suppose you could swamp out my room or garage in only seven hours....?
Oh, OK. I really didn't think so, but there was no harm in asking, was there? or in dreaming??
I gave a couple of van loads of "sludge" recently to a big fund raiser, but do you think I can find any extra space left in my garage?
I'm renewing my resolve to minimize around here, and I've got sludge to spare. Keep your eye on Craigslist and Ebay, and the newspaper, and curbside, and Goodwill, etc., etc., etc... (And don't leave your care unlocked around here.)
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