Call the Hazmat Team

I would like to formally apologize to my sons' future wives (assuming someone actually marries them at some point in the future). I have tried (honestly, I really, really have) to teach them how to pick up after themselves. I have tried to teach them to make their beds. I remind them on a daily basis that food does not belong in their rooms. I let them know I'm not particularly fond of picking up their dirty underwear from all over their floor. I stress the importance of taking care of their things and they know I nearly burst a vein every time I see them put freshly laundered clothes back into the hamper without ever wearing them, simply because they're too lazy to put them away.

They just don't care and would be perfectly content to live in their own filth. I, on the other hand, can only take it messy for about a week before I start to twitch when I walk by their room. I'm not unreasonable. I mean, I know I've got 6 kids and a small house. It looks cluttered a lot of the time. I'm ok with that. I can deal with a little clutter. I don't mind a stack of bills and papers on the counter. It doesn't bother me that we have a bin with hats, gloves, and other outerwear sitting by the door. But I start to hyperventilate when I can't see the floor. I hate seeing toys all over the place and I nearly have a breakdown when the bathrooms are dirty.

I really try to teach them though. So, tell me, why does their room look like this on a far too regular basis?


Enter at own risk. A tetanus shot and steel-toed boots are recommended. Hazmat gear is probably a wise investment.


They used to have a floor. I haven't seen it in awhile, but I'm pretty sure it was there at one time. I vaguely remember a carpet printed with roads on which they drove their Matchbox cars.


It's like living in the city dump.


Nice

Oh yeah, what else would you store in your drawers, but half-eaten granola bars, and old banana and clementine peels. I know that's what I keep in MY drawers.

and Pop-Tarts and hard-as-a-rock bread fragments


and just in case you get hungry later, it's important to stash food among the collection of weird stuff boys keep


So that's where my last Diet Coke went!

(As I was typing out this post, Jackson walked into the kitchen, half-asleep, grabbed a granola bar, and started back to his room. He is always hungry at night. He gets up and eats in the middle of the night often. If I did that, I'd weigh a million pounds. He's skinny as a rail.)

It looks like a pack of wild dogs slept in their beds

Although I try to teach them and I punish them and I take away privileges and I try and try, sometimes it's just easier to kick them out and go in with a garbage bag, a can of Lysol, and one of those garbage picker-upper stick things. I've become quite the expert at cleaning up after them.

A half hour after I took my life in my own hands and set foot amid the toxic waste....

I KNEW there was a carpet for their cars to drive on! (I left the beds alone because I was afraid of what might be living in there. I think I'll strip them down and throw everything in the laundry tomorrow. It's probably been 3 weeks since I did that!)


the tool bench Clay got for Christmas. He still could not care less about it. Brooklyn, on the other hand, likes to carry the tools around in her purse along with an assortment of lip gloss and misc. crap she finds around the house. She's going to be a bag lady when she grows up.


Other than the broken shade, much better

Ahhhh, I feel so much better when every surface isn't covered in stuff.