What if you threw a nuclear bomb and nobody blew up?
I ask that question because last night my wife and I had had enough. The playroom was a mess. No amount of gentle coaxing, positive reinforcement, nagging, hectoring, badgering, threatening or yelling (therapeutic yelling, of course) could get the kids to pick up after themselves and leave the room suitable for human habitation for five minutes afterward. We seriously contemplated calling FEMA. But then we remembered Hurricane Katrina and figured we’d better tend to this ourselves.
Our only choice then was the nuclear option. As soon as the girls went to bed, we pulled out a shopping bag and started filling it. Anything on the floor went into the bag. It didn’t matter how new or precious the toy was. If it was on the floor, it was in the bag. Very soon we had to face a new reality. We needed more bags.
Princess gloves, cards, plastic dolls, paper dolls, game pieces, puzzle pieces, stickers and crayons and papers and pens, toy food, real food, stuffed animals (mercifully no real animals), boxes and bags and purses, and so many things I don’t even known the names of. All of it. Gone. We hauled it away to the dreaded Monday Box.
The Monday Box is where we used to take things that were left on the floor where they shouldn’t be. Really we just hid them in the basement storage room (where we hide our own junk). The idea was that they wouldn’t get the stuff back until the following Monday, and then maybe they’d learn. Oh, yes, we said to ourselves, they’d learn.
Except they didn’t, of course. So we dropped the Monday Box for a while. Until last night, when it came back with a vengeance. And the floor of that playroom went from chaotic to desolate, like the wake of a neutron bomb.
We steeled ourselves for the morning, when would come the air raid siren wails of outrage. They’d cry, not unfairly, that we were being inconsistent, though they wouldn’t use those exact words. They’d throw fits about the princess gloves that were a gift from their Grammy only a week ago and how very cherished and beloved they were and how it was the only way they could feel close to Grammy while she is on vacation for a couple of weeks. They’d make up reasons I can’t even begin to imagine. My wife and I would fear the police showing up at our door from all the uproar.
Night passed.
This morning started quietly. My older daughter had gotten up first and I found her sitting on the stairs reading. (Fittingly, somehow, the book was Dave Barry on Dads — which I had illustrated.) She walked downstairs with me, and I fed her some breakfast. A little later her sister woke up and came down. The two of them scampered off to the play room. Then…?
The sound was deafening. Literally. Because I didn’t hear a thing. Not a squeak, not a yelp, not the slightest acknowledgement that anything was different at all! They simply didn’t notice.
So here’s an idea. Maybe we should skip the threats. Just steal away the toys, one by one, until there are so few that they can’t mess up the room. Will they ever notice?
Yes. They probably will. They will notice that a particular pack of stickers is missing. Or one scrap of paper they were using as a treasure map. In other words, the stuff that looked so insignificant that we didn’t even bother with the Monday Box but threw it directly into the garbage.
Then they’ll go nuclear.
I’m reminded of all the stuff gathering dust in the basement.
From my daughter–various Barbie dolls (and their accessories, including the Dream House), Hello Kitty paraphenalia, board games like Candyland, and entire zoos of stuffed animals. Also several field hockey sticks (and kneepads and mouth-guards), untouched since her senior-year season ended in fall 2009.
From my son–Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers action figures, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures, Star Trek: The Next Generation action figures (removed from the box–the comic book collector in me shrieks in horror), and tons of Lego building blocks. Also one baseball, one bat, and one Little League glove. (Heavy sigh.)
My daughter is now 20. My son is 26. So why is this stuff still sitting in the basement? Because my ex doesn’t want to get rid of it. It reminds her of when her “babies” really were babies. Or maybe she’s waiting to dump it all on our (still theoretical) grandchildren.
The other day, my daughter asked me to buy her a “Hello Kitty” Notre Dame t-shirt (size medium, please). $28 plus shipping and handling. Damn those marketing geniuses at the Bookstore–fiends from the blackest pit of Hell!
Of course, I bought her the t-shirt She’s still my little girl.
Wait till they reach teenage years and discover the floordrobe
My mother used to pack away the toys my sister and I left lying around and then after a few weeks present them to us as if they were brand new. No idea how long it took us to catch on. In retrospect, we weren’t that bright.
Priceless. (Literally.) I’ll have to try that one.
When my husband, Dan, was growing up, whenever he left his stuff where it didn’t belong, his dad would throw it in the ravine which was conveniently located at the end of the back yard. It was possible but not easy to retrieve those treasures which often were worthless after they were rained-soaked.
Today Dan has a place for everything and everything is in its place. And, yes, it drives a normal person (me) nuts.
The other day I thought that threatening my young (ages 2 and 4) kids with throwing away all of their outside toys would resort to order and listening. No such luck! They had no problem helping me load their not so precious toys into the dump trailer. I had to talk them into keeping their scooters and bikes. Sweet!
A few years ago Imaginext and Rescue Heroes went the way of the dinosaur and today only legos and lincoln logs (arranged as an army encampment) remain — but being alone in toyland they don’t take up much room! While I don’t miss dodging the landmine of toys in our livingroom-playroom-yard-hallway-bathroom I have to admit that the “floordrobe” is indeed a worthy replacement and just as vexing!
This is the second time this month I have heard (read) the term, floordrobe. I am truly resentful of the fact that I did not think of it first!
Oh, well. Thanks for reminding me of it. I’ll have to absorb it into my daily vocabulary. Cheers.
“Wow, you had a lot of fun! But, what a mess. This room didn’t look like this when we got up this morning. Well, you choose want to keep and get it put away before bed time. After you’re asleep, I’ll come back and take care of the rest.”…then bag it up for your favorite charity, no discrimination. You only have to repeat the speech and action a couple of times before they get it. Every time they hear the speech, they clean up. It only costs a couple of floors worth of toys to get your sanity back on this battle front.
My mother’s way to keep things simple was this: every time my sister and I received something new, we had to choose one of our old ones to give to the “poor kids”, and we got an extra special cake or cookie when we gave more than what we received – my mother’s firm belief in charity for the fellow man was only matched by her dislike of clutter and excess. While we did go nuclear about a variety of things, and drove her crazy about a million others (my sister still managed to flood the house when she was bathing her one much beloved doll) , we never had to use a floordrobe
Can’t you stock up a huge amount of toys in the basement and then when the time is right, transfer it all back to their room, preferably in the night so when they wake up they will see a mountain of toy junk.