The Empire Struck Back

Mom.  Such a tough title to embrace.  Heartbreaking and rewarding.  Loving and and guiding.  In good times and in bad.  But, none-the-less, I love it.  And, there is only so far you can go with these minions I so lovingly call muppets, before I have to remind them that this is indeed MY Empire.  

Today was one of those days.  After days and days and days of bribing and pleading and demanding and requesting and assisting and reminding and I had enough.

I went to put some clothes away this morning...and the "little bit left" my oldest had assessed the situation as, was really more of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  RIDICULOUS!

So, I calmly said a few things loudly that I would never say in the presence of the aforementioned minions. Continued putting the laundry away...and then cleaned the room.  I removed the clothes - there was full basket o'clothes left.  Mind you, this is after I thought I had it ALLLLLLL done.  I removed all the garbage.  Hmmmm, didn't know Gogurts and popsicles were allowed upstairs.  

Then I proceeded to remove EVERY. SINGLE. TOY.

Before...

And after my mini tirade....

notice how there are only school clothes hanging up...

Notice the dresser where there was once a shelf full of toys.  As they earn their toys back, they will have to make choices.  I am only allowing them one shelf.

Now, I am not totally heartless,  they each got their favorite blanket, their pillow pet, a baby doll and their 18 inch doll.  But, aside from that, they will have their books to keep them company

Some tears.  But, I will bet dollars to donuts that they will think twice when I ask them to clean their room in the future.  I don't think this is how they envisioned their afternoon when the bell rang.

What Happens When Momma Can't Check

I have been out of service for a couple of months.  I have been unable to do the stairs, carry anything (crutches get in the way of that) and so my FF has been left with enforcing the clean up zone.  After my blissful ignorance of my muppet's ability to step up and pitch in totally wore off, I bumped my butt down the stairs to the laundry room. To my shock there were probably 12-15 loads of laundry stacked as high as my shoulders.  My bunker was in shambles - food on the wrong shelves, on the floor, bags of chips that were popped open and now were snacks for Bear who accompanied me.  I could throw a fit, or guilt the heck out of my FF and kids or just take care of it.  I am neither as saintly nor as petty as any of that, so I did a combination of all three.

You would think that would give me a clue about what would be occurring on floor above me, but assurance of my people and that same blissful ignorance, led me to believe that things were getting taken care of, as everyone assured me (including my FF).

Yesterday, after tears from D when I asked her to quickly help her sister clean up their room and some quick math helped em notice I was missing several laundry baskets, I decided to head up there Thursday night.

Big mistake.

I took up the last two baskets of laundry in my house - nicely separated between the girls - and my head split open and a monster crawled out.  I think I started speaking in tongues and my people became very quiet.

Now, I know that this is not the first time I have fussed about this. I did it here. But, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  I have all the laundry put away and the last load is in the dryer as we speak.  Let me preface these pictures by saying that I asked the boys to help out the girls thinking that it would take less time.  So, there are no blameless parties.  I will also say that the FF could have taken my role and gone up there to play mommy and do it himself.  But, I need to remind myself that he is not a mommy and doesn't look at things the same way.


So, here are the images of what I saw when I got up there.

This was when they realized I was ACTUALLY
coming up to check - for the first time in 8 weeks!

There are the two baskets I brought up.  Those drawers - contained
socks, undies, garbage...you name it.  And a glass on the vanity?
Hmmm, drinks are allowed upstairs??

There are the 5 baskets of laundry we are not discussing.
Notice the lack of curtain, yeah, it is the purple mass up on top
of the dresser in the previous picture.

Why, yes, that is a Brewers cup of Daddy's up in the girls' shoe box.
PS - there were undies in here, too.

I have NO clue where she slept...
or if her sister could actually pull out her bed.

I was LIVID when I got up there.  They worked silently because I had instilled the fear of Momma in them.  They worked until they went to bed.  Friday I did not do much, but sent them up there to "work" on their room.  Not much got accomplished.  I guilted Daddy into it on Saturday, but he was too overwhelmed and quickly called me in. 

We are now 27 hours into a clean bedroom.  It has survived a night and day of weekend play.  I found one sock stuffed where it did not belong, but quickly redirected O on that one.  Here is what their bedroom is supposed to look like.  Not quite Momma clean, but Momma is okay with this...

Giovanni was so worried that I had gotten into
the black hole of my girls' room that he braved
the scary stairs to keep my company. #tripawedpower

Not only can you see the floor, but I also found their beds!

Lots of room on the shelves for toys, when they are organized.

Not sure where Daddy was laying out their clothes all this time,
but I got them set out with room to spare.

Clothes are organized - tutus to the left, the boy costumes,
princess dresses and real dress-up/church clothes.
Oh yeah, and you can see their dresser tops.

Hurricanes have nothing on these girls

I have really tried to make all of the kids pull their weight around here.  The chore charts work beautifully.  It is part of being a family - everyone pitches in. Except when it comes to the girls' room.  That is simply a federal disaster area - EVERY BLOODY DAY.  My honey-bunny told me not to worry about it this weekend, he would take care of it.  "Take care of it" = send the boys in to "help" the girls clean their room.  Yeah, it got daddy's stamp of approval last night and I breathed a sigh of relief.

This is what started it all.
Can you even see the contact paper
I worked soooo hard to get the
wrinkles out of??

That changed with the sharp inhale that came about me when I sent D up to bring me all their headbands and ponytail holders. I made an oatmeal can covered in contact paper for barrettes and ponytail holders inside and headbands on the outside.  (Really a great idea - thank you Pinterest!)  She came back with 1 headband and 2 ponytail holders.  Now, that did not really cause the sharp inhale, that would occur once I went up to hunt for all of the hair thingys my girls suddenly did not have.

Bear found the only clean spot - under the bed.
Notice the book coming off D's bed.

Giovanni much more content to sleep on the edge of O's bed,
with D's there to catch him since there was SO
much JUNK on O's bed.

All of the "cleaning" my kids did the night before was more of a "stuff and hide everything in whatever container possible" expedition.  It took me four hours to undo their cleaning!




I am not exaggerating.  There was a nudists' beach of dolls that must have run wild 
last night - Strawberry Shortcake, Disney Princesses and Barbie and her commune all naked with their "stuff" EVERYWHERE.  Dirty underwear shoved in the dish drawer.  Dress up clothes stuffed into the foot locker for shoes, hats and boas.  I was gone so long cleaning, the dogs came up to join me.  The only clean spot for Bear was under O's bed.  The only reason that was clean is because D's bed is a trundle.  Gio managed to take his three legs up over all the junk spewed everywhere and took a spot in the disheveled mound o' stuffed animals - with random other toys and dirty clothes shoved in them to expedite the cleaning process. 

Drawers totally organized.

I was on a rampage.  Not only did the floor get cleaned, but the shelves were organized and I sorted the drawers o' toys.  Little People are back in the Little People drawer, food back in the food drawers, doll house people and furniture in their drawers.  The books were amazingly neat - I think that is where the problem originated.  Books got put away first, meaning they read every single book that was out and time got away from my crew.  When the end was drawing near, it was known that Daddy would be inspecting, hence the stuff in the nearest - bag, drawer and bucket.


And now the question is, will it last?  Silly mommy.  Four babies later.  You know the answer.

Little girl toys and WAY too many shoes -
can you believe that bottom shelf!!??

Dress up clothes BACK on hangers, tops of dressers found.

Books and big girl toys - there
are 2 crates of books and 4 bags.
Only bag out at a time and they
can mix and match as they go.  Every 6 weeks or
so I switch crates and bags of books.