Hello Again!
(Shelley Long in 'Hello Again')
It has been 5 months since my last post and it does seem that the Strangers around here have behaved themselves. I have been focused on getting through the end of the school year with my eldest (7) and handling my youngest (3), Christmas, New Year, rearranging my household (details in another post later) and planning a overseas trip to Mexico on Feb 10th 2018 ( not long now and more details on that in another post). I guess I am feeling inspired again. YES! about bloody time :)
'BOMBED!' - How to clean a kids room (with pictures)
This post is about my eldest daughter's room and how to clean it (pictures included). After my last clean, which the room was much worse condition than this time, my husband and I tried to teach her to take responsibility in keeping her room tidy. It worked for a while then one day the 'bomb' hit it and it all went down hill. So after about a month of encouragement and reasoning with her we got nowhere. So it was my turn again to clean it up. Fun times, NOT! (my teens were through the 90's so Wayne's World is well known to me).
(Mike Myers and Dana Carvey in 'Waynes World')
Here is the breakdown of cleaning a looks-like-a-bomb-hit-it kids bedroom:
Tools:
- Washing basket (or any large container)
- Plastic bag (for rubbish)
- Ziploc bags (for storing and sorting tiny toys)
- Mobile phone (for calling for help in case you get lost, stuck or bored. In my case it was YouTube)
Divide and (start to) Conquer
(Arnold Schwarzenegger in 'Conan the Barbarian')
(A screen grab from a video I took)
Look at your enemy... I mean mess, study it. Visualize in my mind what the different categories are there. Most likely it will be shoes, toys and clothes if you have minions under teen years but if you do have the teens an extra category here would be washing up/food rubbish. In this example I have shoes, toys and clothing so I divide it up.
- The shoes get tossed into their area of the room for organizing and placement later.
- Make the bed for a clear space to now dump ALL the clothing on it.
- Now grab the big empty container and dump ALL the toys in it no matter the size or type.
It SUCKS!
Now that the floor is cleared go grab that vacuum cleaner (and I don't mean the relative who eats the leftovers in the house ;D) that hasn't been able to get in the room and zoom around the room.
(Lucille Ball in 'I Love Lucy')
If the shoe fits, put it where it sits.
Go back to the summit of Shoe Mountain, rack 'em and stack 'em.
Grot of the Cloth or not?
Here is where we decide how much washing we feel like doing (haha just kidding, washing is Future Me's problem).
- Grab the laundry bucket the kid has in the room that they never use. If there is no laundry storage in the room just toss the dirty item out the bedroom door to the hall for collecting on way out.
Pick up an item of clothing and hold it up to a window or light source, easier to see the subtle dirt marks in natural light so they don't surprise you when the kid puts the item on later when you all go out somewhere fancy and there is a dirt smudge. Anything that fails the test goes in the bucket, anything that passes (is clean) goes back on the bed in a new pile.
Once dirt has been cast aside, sort the clean stuff into the categories of tops, bottoms and hangables. Next, fold and put them away.
It.never.stops!
Now for the P.I.T.A (pain in the ass) part, the never ending supply of toys.
- Grab the large container of 'crap' the kid owns. We gonna sort through it now :?
- Pick up the Ziploc bags and plastic bag.
- Plonk yourself comfortably on the floor in front of the crap bucket and turn on your phone to some tunes. I personally used YouTube '90's video playlists.
- Now sort into piles.
- Now get up off the floor (if you can, this is why I suggested having the mobile with you to call for help). The bucket is empty...find the 'orphans' a home. Any rubbish found goes in the plastic bag.
EPIC CHALLENGE COMPLETE!
(Jerry Seinfeld in 'Seinfeld')
Collect your LEGENDARY item at the dungeon NPC (in this case the midget whose dungeon quest you just carried them through)
FOOLED!
There is no legendary item, this quest has turned into a daily with little to no rewards (depending on the NPC)
So now that the room is clean you can go put your feet up...for 15 secs till next thing needs doing.
So long for now, I have other things to write about and another universe to run
