Babes In Toyland

The hammer fell on the girls tonight.  I've been asking them to clean their playroom and bedroom for the past two weeks...and they have been ignoring those requests for the past two weeks.  I asked them again tonight if they would please clean their playroom, and they decided that they had better things to do.  So, I did what any parent would do that had reached the end of their proverbial toy rope - I stripped the playroom of toys.

All of the girls Barbies, Calico Critters, Legos, and Playmobil toys are now in boxes and bins in my office.  While my office now looks like a room from Hoarders: Buried Alive, the girls are pouting and crying because they can't play with the toys they had been stepping over for the last two weeks.

This was a rather shocking display of parental discipline from me as I am usually the one that goes soft on them when it comes to cleaning up...especially the toys.  Being the parent most responsible for purchasing said toys, I have taken it upon myself to clean up after the girls which only enables their non-cleaning behavior.  Sure, I ask them to help me, but Maddy is the only one that does so consistently.  Katelyn will clean when given the choice of cleaning up or sitting on the naughty step (the equivalent of being thrown 'in the hole' at Shawshank).  Jocelyn, on the other hand, always acts as if picking up toys is the most exhausting activity this side of being on a road crew shoveling asphalt...in Iowa...in August...mid-afternoon.  Jossy will lay on the floor and whine that she's tired and needs to rest or go to bed.  She'll pick up a couple of things, but it takes her about an hour.  Meanwhile, Katelyn and Maddy have done most of the work...and Jossy not only avoids heavy lifting, but discipline as the playroom has been tidied up...no thanks to her.

The toys are going to be on a two day lock down, a lock down that started tonight.  They can still do arts and crafts, play outside, etc...but no toys.


I'm also hoping that on Wednesday when we carry the toys back that we can play the 'keep this or donate this' game and cull some toys from that room.  If super nanny has taught me anything it is that beating your kids senseless is frowned upon and giving kids a vested interest in getting rid of stuff teaches them some sort of life lesson...I'm not sure what the lesson is, but I hope it's that when dad asks to pick up all of the half naked Barbies lying around, he means it...because he doesn't like stepping on them and looking at them makes him uncomfortable.