"Two words for you, just two words!!! SNOW SHOVEL!!!!!"
No, I wasn't talking about winter time, or snow, or sleet, or days off school to go sledding down the hill at the park. I was talking about the playroom.
Or, more accurately, our basement that is covered in unholy piles of crap.
There are pieces of at least five different board games colonizing a village made of blocks and Lego pieces. Apparently it's still under construction, since a dozen Tonka and CAT construction machines of various sizes and shapes are surrounding it like the Romans on Masada. The gingerbread men from Candy Land are keeping house in the village, along with the cardboard children from Chutes and Ladders.
There are craft supplies everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. All the markers (name brand, washable, in every color available) are out of their containers and spread, tops off, in every conceivable nook and cranny. Forget finding the crayons. They've been stripped of their paper wrappings, leaving bits of confetti looking trash across the carpet. Glue sticks are dried up. Glitter is covering the floor like psychedelic fairy dust, and every single piece of paper (construction, poster board, drawing paper...) is out of their perfectly labeled drawers and spread out like a multi-colored red carpet for visiting dignitaries.
And. The. Toys.
They're everywhere.
Toys I swear I've never seen before. Toys from yard sales. Toys from birthdays and Christmases. Toys from Happy Meals and Wendy's. Piles and piles of toy infested crap.
Hence, the snow shovel threat.
It seems like at the end of the summer and the after Christmas are the two times of the year when all the mothers walk into their kids' rooms (and, playrooms) and take a look around. And sigh. Or cry. And then start
We imagine a sparkling clean room with no stains on the carpet or crayon drawings on the wall. We fantasize about solid wood wall cabinets with matching, monogrammed baskets with labels like "dolls", "trains", "wooden blocks made out of renewable resources and painted with non-toxic paint". Our kids' size tables aren't made of plastic and weren't handed down through three different families to ours and covered with 15 years of glitter glue and Sharpie drawings. We pretend they're solid maple with matching chairs, where our children are sitting (clean, hair brushed, teeth brushed, in perfectly pressed and matching clothes and hair bows) and coloring in loving drawings of our family to be hung on our perfectly clean, fingerprint free, filled with organic fruits and veggies, refrigerator (in stainless steel, of course!).
Ah, yes. I'm back to my Pottery Barn Porn dreams....
Oh, what?! That's right, I was talking about purging the playrooms. Oops! There goes my mommy ADD again...
So now I have plans. At precisely 8:26 on the first day of school, I will place my precious children in the loving care of the public school system (though, I admit I've hit that "time of the summer" when I start contemplating boarding school. And military school. And convent school), and I will make myself a strong coffee and take it downstairs to the basement. Along with a full box of extra-strength trash bags, the vacuum, and a really bad attitude.
And. I. Will. Clean.
There will be no wall units with pretty baskets. The old table (made by hand by MacGyver and his dad, and that I absolutely adore) with the unmatched chairs (solid wood, unfinished, garage sale, $5) will remain in their place of honor in the middle of the room. The craft supplies will make their way back into their labeled drawers, and the tops will be found for every PipSqueak and Crayola Washable. Glue sticks will be replaced. Glitter tubes refilled. Broken toys and games thrown away, waiting to be replaced by birthday and Christmas gifts.
For one glorious morning and early afternoon, the room will be clean. Purged of junk. Sparkling (well, as sparkling a partially finished basement with a 20 year old carpet and florescent lights can be) and smelling of vinegar and essential oils.
I might even take a picture to remember the moment...
And then, the kids will come home. They will grab their snacks, give me a kiss, and run down to their lair. DQ will squeal with delight at all the new glue and glitter. WMB will shriek at the sight of all his cars and trucks and fire engines lined up in a row. Yippie!!
Hopefully it will take more than 5 minutes before they start complaining that I threw all their crap away, and try to break into the garbage cans.
And chaos will once again prevail.
Oh well. I can look forward to doing it all again after winter break--right?
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