Clean your room!

I finally know what my mom was talking about all those years ago. My room was a mess, I just couldn’t see it.

These days, I have two 7^th graders whose rooms are, for the most part, danger zones. I can walk in and get to the bed to do the nightly tuck-in, but beyond that, there isn’t a spot on the floor big enough for my feet to settle.

Maybe it's a defense mechanism – “If I keep my room messy mom will just look in from the door and won’t bother to come in and touch anything.” And it works. If they’ll bring their own laundry up and down the stairs, then there really isn’t a reason for me to go in. So I don’t.

So where do I draw the line with the messy room? I’ll tell you where – at ants.

Not once, but TWICE we have found advanced colonies of ants in Alex’s room.

Usually the discovery comes after bedtime, when I’m tired, and have a long list of things to do (dishes? Oh, well!) It takes 20 minutes to clear the space of all the clutter and trash just to determine how bad the situation really is. Then 20 more minutes to kill the ants, clean the floor/wall/anything that an ant has touched, and to get things situated well enough for us to go to bed.

Its painful, and really stressful, and infuriating. The last time the ants were there because there was a happy meal box with French fries in it under her bed.

Me: “When was the last time you had a happy meal?”

Kid: “I don’t know…”

So, as a result, Alex has to clean off her floor weekly and isn’t allowed to have anything under her bed. Who knew this would be so terribly difficult to maintain? They’re at school for most of the day, then asleep all night. How in the world does the remaining 8 hours give her time to make such a crazy mess?

And so the discussion comes full circle back to my own mother – who I’m sure had all the exact same thoughts I’m having now. Is it the circle of life? The way the world turns? How the cookie crumbles?

I suppose its just having kids who turn into teenagers.