The 3 boys share one huge room and it has been a never-ending battle to get them to keep it picked up. They have plastic bins for each collection they have; legos, transformers, star wars.... These storage bins fit nicely under their beds and are easily accessible for them to play with so it's not like these toys don't have any where to go. We ask everyday for them to clean it up with the same result, Danny runs off screaming that we "Always make him clean by himself" and the other 2 run upstairs and play with said toys. Thus causing Danny to yell at the other two more with phrases like "Clean up" or "Come on guys" and then he starts screaming at the top of his lungs to them.
Danny is quite a good cleaner-uper. I think that I have encouraged him too much in the past, letting him stop once he has done half of the cleaning for the others to finish it. He is used to this now and always asks "Do I only have to clean half?". Well I did this. He now just sits around waiting for Benny and Andy to help him. Well Benny is lazy and sits around watching everyone else do the hard work and Andy follows whatever his big brother does. Someone to play with, WOO HOO! This drives Danny insane.
So after a whole weekend of asking them to clean up their room Ben and I decided we would do it for them. We had already taken the 3 large under bed bins full of Legos away the week prior. Didn't phase them at all. This time we made them come down and sit on the couch while we went up and cleaned house. It took a little while because we had to sort things into the right boxes but then we got everything cleaned out and moved to the garage. There was now NOTHING in their room but a bookshelf with plenty of books to read and a few plastic chairs and some small blankets. That's IT!
Danny was so upset, as he usually is, letting us know that he did not like that we took all of his toys away. They were sitting on the couch so they got to see each box coming down and heading to the garage. They all went up to inspect the damage when we were done. They expressed some disappointment but within 15 minutes were playing something in their room together. Later when I went up for bedtime I saw the plastic chairs with the blankets over top of them like they were trying to make a fort. At least they were using their imagination and there wasn't a huge mess. You could actually walk across the room.
Day 1 after the toys were gone was amusing to me. The morning went ok beccause they don't really play before school. After school, though, and after homework was done I was asked several times "What can I do?" to which I replied "Read a book". Ellie piped up and told the boys that they could play with her Barbies. They jumped on that opportunity immediately. It is quite funny though that they have nothing to play with in their rooms but can find something to do. Amazing isn't it.
I don't know how long we will keep them deprived but 1 day is definately not long enough. I am waiting for any signs of understanding, which may never come knowing these 3 boys.
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| ALL of their toys, now taking up room in the garage. |
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