Tween Cleaning

The other day, I woke up DJ by throwing things at her from her door.

“Is there even carpet under the crap on your floor?” I asked after she woke up.

“Moe, you can see it,” she said annoyed with my comment. Then quickly added, “kinda.”

I declared it clean-your-room day.

Later that evening, I went upstairs to check progress.  Indigo was excited because she was actually ready to vacuum.  DJ was evasive.

“Did you actually clean your room?”

“You can see spots of carpet now,” she replied.

“So what are you keeping?” as I reached under the bed and pulled out, “Something that no one knows the name of – what IS this?” I asked as I held it up.

DJ started laughing hysterically, then took a breath to say, “I have no idea what that is.”

“But we are keeping it, I see. We are going to keep this to remind us of why we need to clean the room.”

What started was a humor excursion into her room.  We found:

  • 5 spoons
  • 18 hair ties
  • numerous straws
  • monkeys – lots of weird monkeys
  • books she thought she had lost
  • A Mother’s Day card she wrote & forgot to give me
  • A Krispy Kreme hat
  • A packet of ketchup
  • balls – pairs of fuzzy balls in pink, red and blue
  • Spelling words from March
  • Her soccer players card from 2009
  • Various paper cups
  • Valentines Day Cards from last year
  • A poster from the Beaver’s Baseball game – 4th of July 2010
And that was what we found so far.
The project is still underway.
Probably the funniest part of the whole thing was asking her why – why did you keep this or why did you keep that.  And having her realize there was no reason for it.  She simply stashed it.   
If this is what 11 brings, I can hardly wait until 16. 

7 Comments Add yours

  1. John and Ann says:

    It sounds like the title should be Tween Hoarding!

  2. OsShirt says:

    Are we going to get to see this on TV? Please??

  3. Fusion says:

    By the time my daughter was 16, we’d just keep her door shut. She’d clean her room out every month or two…

  4. In our house, the bedroom closets were weird – they were these hollow, wood doors that slid on a track up above. you could never have the whole thing open at once, just slide one door behind/in front of the other to reveal half the closet.

    How my mother knew it was time to have a clean-the-room weekend was that the doors were bulging out – they were only attached at the top, you see.

    That list could have been my list at well, nearly any age at my parents house. even my 20’s.

    Why keep it? Because you never know when you might want or need it. 🙂 I’m 34 and that’s my story and I’m stickin to it.

  5. My daughter is 14 and no different to when she was 11 either. Still hordes everything and her room is always a mess.

  6. Myli says:

    That’s a lot of straws! I don’t even think I have that many in my whole house! lol

  7. I warn DB that if he does not clean his room to my satisfaction, I will come in with the trash bag and do it myself.

    I end up in there once a year with the bag anyway. ITs mostly tons of art projects and happy meal toys since I never let the kids have food in their rooms.

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