Purge, purge, purge!!!

I lost it today.  I flipped a lid and any patience I have had in me -- left my body within a matter of seconds.  Why?  Do you have an hour?  

I know kids make messes.  I'm fine with it.  I know everything can be cleaned up and put away within a matter of minutes and it's done.  BUT, for the past 2 months, what Riley considers to be 'cleaning' her room, is basically a 'shove it in a corner or a drawer and cover it with more stuff' session.  

With her birthday party in 2 days and knowing that more junk, I mean toys, are coming...I told her it was time to purge.  To a 6-year-old, it was the end of the world.  I grabbed all the drawers to her art table, pulled out all toys in the corners of the room and dumped it in the middle of her floor.  She looked at me, stunned, and for the first time in a while, she had fear in her eyes.  

I was a different person.  I grabbed 3 garbage bags and started throwing her treasures away.  I looked at her and gave her a warning to save what she could because what was still on the floor and in my path, was getting tossed.  Mean?  I'm sure I was.  But I really felt like she needed to see me follow through with my threats of throwing things away in order to understand I meant business.  

I filled up three bags.  Say good-bye to the stuffed animals that were collecting dust and mites, adios to the toys that were missing shoes and ciao to the naked Barbies who looked like they had been through something illegal.  Within 20 minutes, the floor was visible again and Riley's fear of my trash wrath was over.  She began to help me out.

Which is where I started to wonder what I had taught her all these years about cleaning.  I was the one doing it all.  I would send her off to play while I reorganized and cleaned her bedroom, and when it was clean, she would walk into this brand new bedroom -- restocked with toys, crafts and a cleared off table.  So I realized today that I had been doing it all wrong.

I am doing a disservice to her by being her personal maid.  How is she going to learn about how to maintain and upkeep her space if I'm the one doing it for her and then she thinks it magically appears clean?  Today, we changed that.  She was the one to put everything in its place and even though she will need lots of practice doing that, she's going to learn to keep her living quarters clean.  

I have to also say that it wasn't easy for me to throw it all away.  I'm a hoarder.  I keep a lot of stuff.  But I know that the more I hang onto things, the more lost I get in life.  I don't want Riley to be that same way.  So, I had to suck it up and watch Ryan's hard-earned money go into the trash.  It really stinks, but it was a lesson we both needed to learn.  

Riley doesn't need all that stuff.  I don't need to keep buying her things she asks for, simply because she asks.  We need to respect the stuff we already have.