A Failure to Communicate

Sunday night when David was putting his toys away (O.K. throwing his toys into a container in the closet) the bucket broke. This resulted in the cry "I can't finish my room because the bucket is broken." Oh so very convenient.

Yesterday morning I went out to Target to get more containers in different sizes for his toys. So last night I made David clean out his entire closet and place the different toys in their own containers with lids. So all the Legos went in one container, the K'Nex in another, and so it went. This made him overjoyed. (Ok, I'm being a bit sarcastic.) The job he got out of the day before because of the abuse in putting his things away resulted in an entire evening of cleaning. After two and a half hours he called to me “Mom, I'm finally finished.”

When I arrived in his room for the inspection you can imagine my surprise when the sight that greeted me included clothes on the floor toys stacked in the corner and papers just shoved onto his bookshelf. This is not my idea of clean, but he claims he didn't see what the problem was. When I calmly told him “Honey, this is not clean” he told Rich I was being really mean because I called him “Honey.” He even told Rich I didn't understand how hard it is because even the kitchen doesn’t get this dirty.

Rich explained the reason it doesn’t is that I am constantly working at it to prevent a massive problem for our family. I will say the toys in the containers in the closet were done very well and that was clean. But there was more work to do.

He did have to clean the rest of the room and finished just minutes before bedtime. I am hoping this process will show him he will only delay and increase his work when it’s not done correctly right away.