Spring Cleaning

Spring cleaning with kids is pointless.

I have a very low tolerance for clutter in my house. I throw a lot of stuff out. Often. Old receipts – shredded. Broken toys – gone. Newspapers – recycled. Out-grown clothes – donated. Happy Meal crap – garbage (and sometimes recycled if I can). Strollers – sold.

Sometimes, I get a little overzealous with my pitching, and throw away things that I shouldn’t. In my frenzy of cleaning, I have definitely garbaged items that should have been kept. Kids’ passport applications – oops!

Yesterday, I tackled all the stuff that the boys have brought home from school over the past year (and in Ben’s case, three years). I had Tupperware drawers bursting full. Every work of art, piece of paper and worksheet that either kiddo had brought in the house over the course of the school year seemed to have crawled its way into the basement. Some (most) of it had to go.

Look, it isn’t that I don’t love and cherish every piece of paper that the boys put a mark on. Each receives its due enthusiasm (You scribbled all over my grocery list? Hooray!). But, if I were to keep every piece of art or scrap, I would be drowning in paper, glitter and glue.

So, yesterday I put a clothesline up in the basement playroom to hang a few of Benjamin and Nicholas’ favorite pieces, took out a plastic bin to save all my favorites (Mother’s Day cards? Father’s Day cards? Anything with a hand-print? In the box!), and the rest got pitched.

Well, almost.

I had just gotten started when Ben came over to see what I was doing.

“What are the piles for Mommy?” He asked.

“Well,” I replied, pointing to each in turn. “This is my very important pile for everything I love and want to keep. This pile is for all your special artwork that will go up on our clothesline. This pile is for ideas I want to copy if I go back to teaching, and this last pile is going to be recycled.”

Guess which heap Ben made a beeline for?

“Mommy! I love this worksheet on the letter D. You can’t recycle it!”

And so it began…

Soon Nicholas joined his brother, and they ganged-up on my cleaning efforts:

“Mommy! I love my rocket-ship. You can fix the rip with tape!”

“I made that picture of a hurricane (Oh, that’s what it is. My mistake) for Nicholas. You can’t throw it away!”

“My Weekly Readers, I want to keep ALL OF THEM!”

“Mommy, I love my painting-with-marbles picture. Don’t recycle it.”

“Why can’t I keep my….scribble, painting, random worksheet, scrap of torn-paper, brown-bag puppet, ripped-up painting, folded coloring page…” Just fill in the blank. You get the idea.

I finally distracted my two little helpers (and I say that through clenched teeth) by asking them to bring the very important items (read, the ones I wanted to keep) upstairs to the dining-room table. One-by-one. Did those pieces of art need to find their way to the dining-room table? No. The bin I was going to save them in was in the basement. But, I needed to get Ben and Nicholas out of my hair for 30 seconds at a time to throw out more mess.

Next time, I am cleaning the boys’ stuff after they go to bed at night.

Our clothesline of artwork.

I saved a few of their absolute favorites (the picture of the hurricane did not make the cut), then discreetly put the rest at the bottom of the recycle pile while neither was looking. I know. I’m a horrible mom for lying to my sons. My dishonesty will probably put them both into therapy. No parenting awards for me. But, honestly the boys are never, EVER going to look for any of those papers again. It has all been sitting in a bin for the last year, unnoticed and collecting dust (and who knows what else). Out of sight, out of mind. They won’t miss it.

Let’s hope not anyway.

Anyone have great suggestions on what to do with all the kids' precious pieces? Share, share, share!

xo Naomi