Out of the mouths of babes.  Alex and I walked through the door yesterday after I had picked her up from school.  She went into her bedroom and I heard her yell out to me ‘Good girl!’ I asked if she was talking to me (our cat is a boy, so there really wasn’t anything else she could have been talking to), to which she explained that I had put her clean clothes in a pile on her bed instead of in the washing basket on the floor.  Pat on the back for me!  I had pleased my teenage daughter, doesn’t happen very often.  Now to explain further so you understand the big picture…

Alex has never been one to keep her room tidy.  EVER.  As a young child it was a miracle if you could ever see the floor.  I liked her to have her own space and always hoped that she would get sick of the mess and tidy it up without me nagging her to do so.  Nope.  It always got to a stage where I couldn’t handle it anymore and I would crack, making her clean it up (terrible mother I know, so cruel).  Now, at this stage it was SUCH a mess that it was overwhelming for her to even contemplate where to start, so I used to get a piece of rope and section it off into small sections.  I’d let her know just to focus on that small section, pick something up, put it back where it belonged, pick the next thing up etc.  This worked really well, even though it was accompanied with whinging and whining and ‘it’s not fair, why do I have to do it by myself? Why don’t you help me?’ blah, blah blah.

Ten years later and she still lets her room get into a chaotic and gross mess.  I put a washing basket filled with clean clothes in there once for her to put away, but alas, they stayed in there and so did the basket.  So the following week when there were clean clothes, I just put them on top of her other ones in the washing basket and it continued like that for, I am ashamed to admit, months.  Why she has a wardrobe I do not know. It got to the point if she needed to wear something she would look in her basket first.  But then it started to explode as the pile of clothes got bigger and bigger and the carpet on her floor slowly started to disappear under a mountain of clothes (At least they were clean clothes, she is actually really good at putting dirty ones in the dirty washing basket).

Last week, my patience had come to a point where I just couldn’t handle the state of her room for one more minute.  There was nowhere for me to put my feet to walk into her room other than on top of her mess.  So I snapped and made her clean it up.  It took her the whole day. But oh my Goodness, how much better it looks!  And surely she feels better about it?!!  (I bet she does but wouldn’t admit it) So when I was putting her clean clothes in her room for her to put away,  I decided not to give her the basket.  I just put them in a pile on her bed for her to put away.  And I was rewarded for my efforts and my good sense, by her telling me I was a Good Girl.  Bless her little heart. What a good Mum I am 😛