Cleaning, organizing a child's room

This morning Storyteller was supposed to help me clean and organize her room. We spent a couple of hours just getting things out from under the bed (two twin beds for Storyteller and Drama Queen pushed together) and going through the disorganized boxes their father once bought out of frustration with no real plan to organize.

Last weekend we bought a kit of 9 cubicles that you can add little baskets to. Passionfruit and I were all pumped. Another project for us to put together. We absolutely look forward to these items we have to put together. We work well with one another. When I think of all the things we've put together the list goes on and on. Things like our hall tree, his desks (we've done 2 in 12 years of marriage), closet components, tables (coffee and side) are the types of stuff I'm talking about. Items that have numbered or lettered parts and accompanying hardware. We broke the box open and started going through things. Passionfruit was the typical male. He started putting it together. I assumed my female role of going through the hardware to make sure we have all the little things we need to assemble it. Drama Queen was aiding me. Suddenly, Passionfruit stops and says it's not going to work. We had four identical boards and not the two of one type and two of another that we needed.

Now we are waiting for the two missing panels to come to us. We have at least another week to wait. But in the meantime what truly inspired the cleaning spree was the missing items in the house. To date we are missing the children's light jackets, our Scotch Tape dispenser, a library book from school, and a case for a video from the public library. The last two items are really what I am interested in finding. I hate losing library stuff. Not just because I"m a librarian of sorts but because it means money to pay for these things.

So I am taking a break from the arduous task of cleaning and organizing children's rooms. What I've come to decide is that the children have grown out of several of the toys, and they should be given to others less fortune than my children. I've also decided that these kids have waaaaay too much stuff. And most of this stuff is tiny pieces of things that are guaranteed to hurt in the middle of the night should you have the misfortune of stepping on them. Our children are not at all inspired by or like expensive fancy toys. Instead, they like those little toys you get from Happy Meals and stuff like that. So I suppose I want to say that if you want to give our children a gift please go buy a happy meal and send them the "prize". You get a meal and they get happy.

Now I really ought to get back to this major project. OH, MY GOD! THEY'VE FOUND THE RECORDER FLUTES! So much for a quiet peaceful afternoon...