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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Archaeology and Spelunking under Kids' Beds

My have-to list won yesterday, one reason this post is late. My closets and storage rooms reached the point where I couldn't put things away until I put the things that were jammed inside in a better order. We were also rearranging a few bedrooms. I had three move out in the last six months, leaving spare beds and other such things in their wake. I thought cleaning out the bedrooms won't take that long. Ha!

Here are some of the things I discovered yesterday:

7yo girls are drama queens. Tears, tantrums, weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth - we saw it all yesterday. She's my only girl at home now, both sisters have moved on. She gets her own room. She is the one child that doesn't want her own room. The extra bed in the room needed to go. She had her choice of keeping her white princess daybed or taking her sister's loft bed. Her 15yo brother wanted the loft bed. It's a beast to move. We discussed trading bedrooms. The two boys wouldn't mind sleeping in a purple and blue fairy room, would they? She wouldn't mind having the space bedroom to herself. Ha! I'm an idiot somedays.

So we discussed trading beds. My boys have a bunkbed and a twin bed in their room (result of a son leaving last spring). My 9yo wouldn't hear of moving to the bunk bed and giving up HIS bed. Have I mentioned my boys are all either autistic or borderline autistic? They would rather sleep in a nest of rabid squirrels than change something. The 15yo saw the possibilities of the loft bed, with a desk space underneath, and gave in to change. He wanted it. 7yo decided it was HERS and no one was going to take it. We made her change the sheets. That almost made her change her mind. Almost.

To make the very long soap opera much shorter, the 7yo has the loft bed. The princess bed is in the basement, taking the place of the dead couch that no one could sit on because the cushions were always part of the fort construction. The bottom bunk is cleaned out to use as a reading spot because the 9yo still refuses to give up his bed. And I still have piles of junk to help clean and sort in the 7yo's room.

In the process of putting things away yesterday, I organized four other rooms in the house. Sort of. I shifted things just enough to fit in the stuff I was putting away. I didn't clean the dead spiders out of the corners. I only sorted one shelf in my pantry.

I did go spelunking under a few beds. Only people with strong stomachs and welding gloves should attempt that feat.

7 comments:

  1. *snickers* I am not at all surprised- they hated it when I would go spelunking under their beds every 6 months when I was home.

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  2. Couldn't have been every six months. Or else my carbon dating is off. That was horrific under some of those beds.

    I found your knives and things. They were under the princess bed, buried in stuffed animals and paper bits.

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  3. Wow, now I feel sort of calm and peaceful with just one boy claiming both his old crib (white bed!) and his new toddler bed. At least the littlest doesn't care and sleeps well in the pack and play.

    Hannah

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  4. What a day! Spelunking under beds is ... well, I'd rather in a cave. Spiders be my husband's job.

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  5. It's a necessary evil of being the mom. Next time I have a child move out, we'll have to do it again. Looks like that will be at least 5 years...

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  6. Lol. I just had a mental image of you as Indiana Jones using that staff/amulet combo in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Hehe.

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  7. And I never listed the artifacts I uncovered. Considering they are still in piles on the bedroom floors, I'm not sure what they are. I don't want to remove the dust bunnies to find out.

    And if I looked that good in a fedora, I'd go digging for treasure all the time.

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Keep it clean, keep it nice.