Cleaning out the bedroom of a 7-year-old hoarder

Let me just clear the air and tell all of you people, without any disregard, in no lack of genuine self-respect, in the absence of any real irrationality or pretention to the real world, any fakeness or make believe, or false-staging, or a keeping up with the Jones’s type of attitude, you all must know my deepest, most darkest secret. 

Ready?

 Here it is: 

I am a horrible housekeeper. 

Yep, I said it.

No matter how hard I work at it, no matter how much effort I put into it, or how much I’ve ever so longed to be one of these women who can keep and maintain a beautiful home, it is with much shame and guilt that I have to come forward and admit- I’m just not good at keeping my home clean and free of clutter, because it’s who I am as a person.

I’ve struggled to acceptthis as a fact about myself for many, many years now.  I’ve denied it, I’ve externalized blame on other things, I’ve painfully pretended that the fact that my house was not oh-so-clean was because of my ever-so-busy life.

But that’s wrong. All of those things are wrong.

So here it is people, with no excuses:  My house is somewhat of a lived-in mess.  There are some days when it is cleaner than others.  There are bouts of time when it is really bad, where I’d be very hesitant to ever let anyone through the front door.  There are times when my husband and I have busted our asses in preparation for company to come over, and there are also times when we say, “F this shit, let’s go do something fun!”      

There’s other things in life I might be ok at.  I’m somewhat good at my job.  I’m a pretty ok friend.  On possibly the majority of days (but certainly not all of them), one might call me a decent mother or wife.  But a housekeeper?  Nope.  Not an adjective that could possibly describe me. 

But that’s ok.  It’s all fine.  I’ve learned to accept it, embrace the mess, and move forward. 

So for about 10 years now, way before my first born child was born, I’ve owned this house, and also have worked the general school schedule.  You know, the general 8-4 week days, with weekends, part of the summers, and most school vacations off.  It couldn’t be a greater working-mother schedule, especially now that both of my children are school aged.  I really do consider myself lucky to be blessed with the idea that I can work full-time and also be at home with my kids for most of the outside of school hours. 

Pretty much since I returned to work after my 6-week maternity leave with my daughter, which was approximately 5 years ago now, I’ve always played like this game of fall-behind and catch-up.  I’ve slowly come to know that there are these stints of time where there’s lots of school, and also these short stints of time where I don’t have to work at all,.  Like September-October- solid school months, then there’s a short break in November for Thanksgiving, another 3-4 weeks of school, then a week or two for the Holidays.  Another long, long, forever long 6 weeks in the dead of Winter, then February break.  Another 6 weeks, then April break.  Then we go the 6-7 more weeks of the end-of-school stretch, and it’s summer time.  That’s the school year, in a nutshell, each year.  And the state of my house aligns right with it. 

Currently, February break has just begun.  And as of Friday night, my house was probably in the worst state of mess it ever has been in.  During the long weeks of school, all of my time is devoted to keeping up with the basics.  Daily laundry and dishes, the weekly assurance that the bathrooms are somewhat of a sanitary place for my family to eliminate and bathe in.  Somewhat healthy cooked meals each night, and general preparation for the next day.  And on top of it, transporting the kids to/from school, nightly homework, sports events, dance lessons, birthday parties (January is just packed to the brim with those) and other stuff.  But other than that, everything else becomes literally just a pile of crap.  The kids’ bedrooms, my bedroom, dusting, detailed vacuuming, deep cleaning of the floors, windows and walls.  These things just do not happen during those 6-8 week stints of time. And it’s embarrassing for the world to see.  It’s a real tragedy.

The surfaces of my household suffer the most during these marathon school-day stints.  The kitchen table, cluttered with papers, mail, and random craft materials.  The living room floor, peppered in dirty socks, and random toys, and chewed-up dog toys.  The bedrooms, with dirty clothes, and more toys, and half-read books.  And the kitchen, god bless the kitchen, with half eaten bags of goldfish, a fridge half-full of rotting food, and a garbage that always seems to be over-flowing no matter how often we take it out.  And during these long stints, it’s all just maintenance.  Damage control.  Making sure nobody dies inside of the hoard. 

And over this February break, I’ve begun on this predictable stage of the cycle, to shovel through the hoard of a busy life.  So far this weekend, I’ve done 6 loads of laundry, cleared off the dining room table, and slowly have worked at rediscovering the floors of our bedrooms.  And while all of the rest of these great house-keeping wives are on their mid-winter vacations down south, or cruises to the Bahamas with their wonderful families, I’m sitting here at home proud at the fact that everybody living here, for one day out of our sad, uneventful lives, can see the real floor of my 7-year-old son’s bedroom.  A true day of triumph in this household. 

We devoted our entire Sunday to it, my little boy and I.  And let me tell you, there is no such thing as throwing away ANYTHING when it comes to cleaning out my kids’ bedrooms alongside them.  They hoard that shit like it’s their last day on earth.  I said, “Little boy, today we’re practicing the 6-month rule.  And this is the big black garbage bag.  And anything you haven’t touched in 6 motnhs, minus random socks and underwear that needs to be laundered, is going into this bag and being kissed good-bye.”

About 5 minutes into this ordeal, I realized that this statement was just a big, fat un-truth.  Cleaning a 7-year old’s bedroom is like a double edged sword: you gain some clean space, and you rediscover every toy they’ve ever played with since birth that they refuse to part with. 

Artifact #1- The nerf machine-gun rifle that he has used… wait for it…. Once.  In 3 years. 
 

“Avery, you have 12 other nerf guns that we just organized up there on that crowded shelf.”

“But mom, this is my battle gun.  I need it for nerf wars.”

“Avery, there are no nerf wars.  When has a nerf war occurred in your lifetime, ever?”

He crossed his arms, "No yet, but there will be one pretty soon.  I've got to be prepared."

Fine, I guess we’ll save this 2 foot, useless gun without any nerf bullets.  We’ll just clear off a whole freaking shelf to the store the thing. Just to have it, even though you’ll never use it.  Just to save you the emotional pain of parting with it. 

Artifact #2- 1 piece of a Velcro catching set.  No velcro ball.  No other catching piece.  Just 1 piece.  With cat hair woven inside of it.  One third of a $5 cheap throw set he probably received at least 2 birthdays ago. 

 

Avery says, “Mom, we use this all of the time.  Remember, I use it at the beach.”

I hesitantly respond, “Avery, you used it once at the beach 2 years ago when you got it for your 5^th birthday.  The other 2 parts are missing now.  It’s useless.  I’ll get you a new one this summer!”

Avery responds, “yes, but if you get me new one this means a third person can play.  You know, like you, me and Amelia?” 

I sigh, doubtedly.  “Alright fine.  Throw it in your closet with the rest of the summer toys.”

Artifact #3: The horse clock we won last year during Avery’s school fundraising raffle.  Too ugly to do anything with.

 

I say, “Avery, this is junk.  We don’t have any use for another clock, and it’s broken.”

He reponds, “Mom, I can’t even believe you’d consider throwing this out.  Dad won it at my school raffle.”

“Avery, we’ll never use it.”

He cries, “Let’s hang it above my bed.”

Yeah, because a broken wild horse clock goes so well with an outer-space themed bedroom. 

Artifact #4:  3 sizes of Woody dolls- why have 1 when you can have 3?

 

I exclaim, “Avery, we’re getting rid of 2 out of 3 of these, which 2?”

He says, matter of factly, “Mom, we’re getting rid of none of them.  I play with them all.  The little one goes along with my lego guys, and the medium one I play with Amelia’s barbies all of the time, and the biggest one is like a classic.”

I nod, “Well then let’s hang onto the biggest one.”

Avery, “No way, we’re definitely keeping all 3!”  He grabs them and throws them into the bottom of his toy box.

Artifact #5:  Emperor Zurg

 

Avery, “Oh my gosh I’ve been looking for Zurg!”

Me, “For real?  Because he’s been sitting here out in the open on the floor right next to your bed for over 3 months.” 

Avery, “Yeah he hibernates during the war.  Now that the war is over with, he coming back to rule the kingdom.”

How do I argue this explanation?

Artifact #6-  Dollar store wrestling figurine.

 

I look at Avery, “This guy needs to go.  You never play with him.”

“Mom, the wrestling team isn’t even a team without him.”

I shoot back, “Avery, he’s been sitting in the far corner underneath your bed buried in a pile of other useless  toys and dust for at least 3 months now.”

He takes him from my hand, “No he hasn’t been.  I just put him there like yesterday to hide him from the others.”

No you didn’t, I say to myself.  Liar. 

I throw him into the toy box.

Artifact #7, the most random af all:  A yellow rubber chicken.

 

I don’t even ask Avery.  I just throw the dang thing in the big black bag.

He dives for it, “Mom, what are you thinking?  This is the prize I won for traveling the furthest to see Papa Pitman’s performance in groundhog Opry when I was 4.  It’s so special to me.”

I look at him, “Avery, it was wedged behind your beaureau and it’s leg and beak are chewed off by the dog.  It’s trash now.”

He pulls the rubber chicken into him, “Treasure.  My forever treasure.” 

A chewed up rubber chicken is now treasure? This really just about sums up everything I once knew about life from a 7-year-old’s eyes. 

The list goes on.  With every new artifact, it goes on and on and on.  We throw out nothing.  We hoard every last toy on his never-ending messy floor.  What this little 7-year-old boy doesn’t know, is that during the next time when he is not present, most of this stuff will be thrown out and he will never know it was missing. 

I suppose with every hoarded mess, there’s a story, a reason, and an explanation.  My little 7-year old sweetheart, keep on doing that.  You’ll end up a housekeeper quite like your own mother. 

But I guess that’s okay.  There’s plenty of worse things you could be.  We’ll revisit all of these crazy toys during April break, and until then, believe it or not, this house will still stand strong, amongst the clutter and chaos that we call our own!