I spent hours upstairs with Elly yesterday, cleaning out her disaster zone of a room. I’ve cleaned a lot of kids rooms in my day but never have I seen one quite like this… it’s not so much that it was the worst (that honor still goes to Michelle Belle, I think) but I was constantly surprised by the things I found. I was also just surprised by Elly and the cleaning of her room. That’s even more unusual — me being surprised by a kid. Huh.

She is the kid who is most uncomfortable with throwing things away or giving them away or selling them. She needs to hold onto her things. She was terrified (and not just pretending to be) that I was going to throw away something important or special (and it was all important or special) while she wasn’t looking. Or while she was looking.

I’m not really that kind of parent, so we made it through the job with only a few hysterical moments (none of which dissolved into tears — see, nobody ever cries around here. It’s so weird, lol.)

I didn’t throw away the bug carcasses in her Disney princess jewelry box/cd player.

I did not throw away any of the plastic shopping bags.

I did not throw away any of her stuffed animals (they’re just to look at!!!!)

I did not throw away anything that would have caused her anxiety, though it was touch and go for awhile when I wanted to throw out an almost completely unused French workbook from 6th grade. (She does not TAKE French any longer and has no plans to do so again, lol.)

I did throw away her hat boxes and several hats, but she couldn’t argue with that since they were horribly mildewed and more disgusting than pretty much anything I’ve ever seen in a kids’ bedroom.

I also didn’t REALLY mess up any of her special “displays” though I very much wanted to.

I did, accidentally, mess up the erasure pigs’ home. I had no idea the empty Mr. Potato Head box was housing pigs — and by that time, we’d been up there for hours and I was very, very tired of being up there. Oops. I’m sure the pigs are just as happy (almost?) living in a decoupage baby food jar.

Last week, I had to go up to RJ’s bedroom to look for a library book that was about to be over-due and could no longer ignore the fact that her room was a MESS.

(That’s my rule — teens can do what they want with their room, as long as I don’t have to go into it but as soon as I have to enter the room, for whatever reason — if it’s a mess, then it has to get cleaned up.)

So, I made a date with her to get in there and clean it up. If I’d just told her to clean it up, she would have shoved things into corners and into the closet and under her bed — so I went up and directed her and helped sort through some of the mess with her.

Two hours later…

– Turns out Prince J isn’t the ONLY Pop Tarts stealer in the house. He might eat an entire box of Pop Tarts but RJ hoards package upon package of Pop Tart. I prefer Prince J since we had to toss all of her hoard out and at least he actually eats what he takes.

– She has a lot of journals but she HATES journals.

– I found more than a dozen books that belong to me and TW up there.

– The kid with NO hair has the most hairbrushes. I counted five but there may have been more.

– The kid with NO hair has the most hair accessories: pony tail bands, hair clips, barrettes, head bands.

– Christmas gift card boxes make great condom boxes. Who knew?

– M&M’s might not melt in your hand but they do melt in a M&Ms dispenser that hasn’t been touched in a couple of years. Yuk. (Teens have to be almost FORCED to through said M&Ms dispenser away even after they’ve exclaimed over the disgusting mess inside of the M&M holder for a good twenty minutes.)

Stay tuned — I’ve got a date with Elly for bedroom clean up.

Johnny Mac Pippin’s mom and dad. Aren’t they cute?

There are days when these girls are just… beyond wacky.

They rant. They rave. They make jokes. They poke fun. They laugh and laugh and laugh.

And, we laugh along with them.

I’m pretty sure the people in Menchie’s tonight thought we were mad.