Just Don't Get It

I spent the better part of this afternoon and evening helping my son clean his room. We just haven't been able to get him to grasp the concept of taking out a few things to play with and then putting them away before pulling something else out. And to make matters worse, his sister has a tendency to go in his room to play, bringing along toys of her own and helping him make a big ole mess, but not wanting to help when it comes time to clean it up.

When we were in Germany, I bought these racks with buckets to sort their toys. I thought that having a way to keep them sorted would help make cleaning up easier. After all, that's sort of how daycares do it, and they would help clean up at daycare without any problems. Each time we move, I sort their things into their buckets and put them on the racks. It doesn't take long for everything to get all messed up again.

So today I went in to help him. It had just gotten to the point where it was overwhelming for him. He would come down and tell me that he was finished, and I'd go up to check and things were just shoved against the wall, up next to his bed...I guess pretty much to get it out of the middle of the floor. Is this a boy thing? Then when I told him again this afternoon that it wasn't finished, he just got so upset. So that's when I knew that it was time for me to step in. So I went in there and together we took out all his buckets, sorted everything out and organized it again. Then when we got the majority of his room mostly finished, I took his mattress and boxsprings off his bed. The bed is really low to the floor, and the only way to clean out from under it is to take it apart. I still haven't figured out how he manages to get so much crap shoved up under there...not to mention all the crap between the bed and the wall. Blows my mind! So we got that cleaned out, I vacuumed under the bed and moved it over as close to the wall as I could get it to try to keep so much stuff from getting down there, and we put everything back together.

So now his room is nice and neat again. I guess we'll just have to see how long he can keep it that way. I try to tell him that he has a birthday coming up (in less than three weeks), and he's going to be wanting new toys for his birthday, so he needs to take care of what he already has and keep things put away when he's not playing with them. Both the kids were impressed with how nice it looked when we were finished, and how much room they had, so maybe that will be at least some motivation to try to learn good habits.

Shoot, I'm still trying to improve my habits!