Failed.

Does anyone remember that I took most of my kids' toys away and stashed them in my closet with the intention to keep them there until they learn to clean up?


Well, they have not learned to clean and I'm tired of them in my closet. Brooke would actually want to put her toys in my closet because then she wouldn't have to pick up.

If anyone happens to be a new parent and reading this, I know it sounds cliche, but TOYS ARE OVERRATED!!!!! Don't buy ANY new toys just because you think they might like it! Somehow they show up anyway- especially if Grandparents are involved.

Somehow, even though a large percentage of the toys were in my closet, they still did not get bored. And we don't have a TV.

So now they are slowly getting their toys back, but the problem is that when I packed them up I just threw them into baskets and millions of bitty pieces  from thousands of different sources are all over MY closet floor because we have to go through these baskets to find all of the pieces that belong to the particular game they want. sigh.

We are back at square one.

We had a battle about cleaning their room today, and I decided that I would just throw away anything of minimal value away since they had shown no intention of picking up. I casually picked up a small stuffed dinosaur that Summer got from the hospital when she got her x-rays and threw it in the trash. Well, she saw me do it and all of a sudden that dinosaur was sooooooo important. I didn't give it back, as hard as it was. Kevin Leman's words were going through my head "pull the rug out from the little buzzards."

Their room is clean now. Long term cleanliness???? I have my doubts. Again, they are learning from a very poor example, unfortunately.

p.s. I'm sure there are misspelled words in here but I still have not figured out where the spell check is. help anyone??