Saturday, April 28, 2012

Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up!

This is what my living room is supposed to look like:


Notice that you can SEE the carpet.

However, every single day THIS is what my living room actually looks like:


Madeline takes the living room from picture #1 to picture #2 in about 25 mins. It's a skill.

Something I'm proud to report: at nearly 21 months old she will (help me) clean it up! I need to help her put her books back on the shelf, and I put her ride-on toys back where they're supposed to go, but she'll do the rest. I say, "Ok, it's time to clean up! Lets put your toys back in the basket!" and she does. Slowly at first, but then the more I "YAY!!!" and clap for her the more she gets into it and the faster she goes.

I know that eventually she'll look me in the eye and tell me NO when I ask and I'll have to put my mommy-pants on and deal with that attitude accordingly, but for now? For now I'm glad that my big girl is willing and able to clean up her mess before bedtime.

Warning: If you EVER come to my house between the hours of 9am-8pm my house WILL look like picture #2, and you're responsible for watching where you're walking and not breaking your neck. You've been warned. ;)

1 comment:

Brenda said...

Hahaha! I tell everyone who comes over between those general hours that my house is only clean when no one ever comes over (at night). I swear I clean, but it never looks like it during the day! Lol! Go Madeline for helping Mommy! We recently started "rewarding" Zohie for helping out! Japanese Yen coins come in 1's, 5's, 10's, 50's, 100's, and 500's. However, the 1's and 5's are basically never used, so we started collecting all of ours in a jar to eventually change in someday when we had a substantial enough amount. We finally decided to let Zohie decorate an recycled jar and give her a 1 yen coin (we call them yennies...instead of pennies, lol) every time she helps us with something (making the bed, doing the laundry, cleaning up her toys, etc.). When she gets five "yennies" we change it in for a 5 yen coin (we call them yickles...instead of nickles) and so on! Eventually she will get 100 yen and we will let her pick something out from the 100 yen stores (basically a dollar store)! We'll see what the motivation has to change to when she starts saying, "NO!" when asked to clean up! Lol!