A Lesson in Cleaning

The Wife is a neat-nick.

I am not.

This is a not unimportant fundamental difference in life philosophy. Her desk is immaculate and a paragon of the old adage “A place for everything and everything in its place.” My desk, typically, has a few square inches of cleared area that moves around the desk with the piles. Kind of like those tiled-number puzzles where the object is to put all the tiles in order and there’s one open space so that all the tiles can be moved around. I defend my piles simply by stating that I remember where everything falls. An disorganized desk is a sign of an organized mind, I say.

Given our disparate views on organization and cleanliness, the Wife tends to be the enforcer where the kid’s rooms are concerned. Well, where the house is concerned really but for now we’ll focus on the kid’s rooms. She wants them picked up and tidy. She has gone to great lengths to provide cubbies for their toys so that the floors in the room can be clear for walking on. It just requires a little maintenance on the kid’s part to make the system work.

Typically, the motivation for that maintenance is provided in the form of nagging.

So today, when the Wife told them to clean their rooms, they had to interrupt their morning cartoons to go do it. SUCH AN INCONVENIENCE! They disappeared for about 5 minutes, then returned. The Wife, in the meantime, was vacuuming the floors because our dogs are blowing their coats. Again.

For whatever reason, perhaps because the quick turnaround time from the being-asked to completing their “cleaning” seemed odd, I ventured up into their rooms to see how they’d done. Just because I don’t practice it, doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do it. It also doesn’t mean I don’t know how to recognize a cleaned room. Toys still on the floor, beds unmade, clothes in various piles around the room do not a clean room make.

So I called them up and played the role of supervisor for the next 20 minutes. During this time, my most oft used phrase was “What’s that?” The second most was “Where does it belong?” They claimed they’d made their beds. After pointing out the crumpled blankets, the half-off-the-bed pillows, the mussed sheets and the stuffed animals strew hither and thither, they were chastened enough to actually make their beds. Clothes on the floor were picked up- some went into the laundry, some into drawers. Toys buried under those clothes were also picked up. Pieces of paper were pointed out and thrown out. Shoes were put in closets. Finally, they each vacuumed their rooms. All was done under my close supervision.

When it was finished, I told them both to take a good look at what they’d done. With them having done so, I then explained that was what clean looked like and there should be no confusion in the future about what’s expected of them when told to clean their rooms. They both nodded with understanding then went back downstairs to finish watching their cartoons.

I’ve got a feeling we’ll be doing this again.