Friday, September 15, 2006

Better Than A Paycheck


Cole
Originally uploaded by Beth.
Little “rewards” that come your way when you finally give up on your kids actually cleaning their rooms in a way that resembles clean, and just do it yourself . . .

• You find a first place blue ribbon your seven-year old won in a poetry contest last May—who knew?!

• You find an odd looking 2x3 picture of a grown man under your child’s bed. Knowing it’s not a relative, you have a panic attack that a pedophile has befriended your little one . . . only to discover it is actually a picture of Grover Cleveland—22nd and 24th President of the United States. You learn the Baby Ruth candy bar was named after his daughter who was nicknamed “Baby Ruth”.

• You find your daughter’s $400 retainer she lost something like a month ago.

• You find one of your son’s, required for school or you get a uniform demerit, belts. You are quite glad about this because all four of his belts are missing, and he had to wear his little brother’s very small belt this morning.

• You get the satisfaction of seeing what those cute little rooms are suppose to look like after all the time and money you spent decorating them.

• You are reminded once again this season of life will one-day be long gone . . . and you’ll wish with all your heart you had a few messy rooms to clean instead of just the memories.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

...and then they will move back home and the memories will all come flooding back...:)Some things never change.

michelle said...

I love your last comment. I remind myself of that so many times..."I will miss this one day"....sometimes it helps sometimes it doesn't. ;-)

Janelle said...

After moving, and then moving again, and then traveling this last year, I am still amazed at how much stuff my kids accumulate. We've only been in our new house two months and I've already found a rock collection under the bed.

I wouldn't trade them and their stuff for the most organized, perpetually clean house in the world. :)

Karenkool said...

What an adorably cute room, Beth.

When I saw the picture my very first thought was, "Holy Smokes! That room is clean!" hahaha then I read your post.

Funny that I was just thinking about taking some pictures of my teenage boys' room to blog about. IT IS HORRID!!! And I honestly don't care what I may find underneath THAT rubble (it's GROSSSSS). Their idea of clean is just... WRONG! But finding things in the girls room is a much sweeter reunion--like you were saying.

Anonymous said...

I just LOVE reading your stories Beth! We've been encountering lots of those kind of "treasures" packing up the house these past few weeks.

You asked about my pictures - the ones in the background we had taken at Moto Photo. I doctored them up on a program called "Picasa" that you can download for free on Google. The pictures in the raquetball court and Back 40 were taken by an intern. All of the other pics of the kids I've taken...digital cameras are the best! :)

jacki said...

lol! Yeah, my mum helped my littlest sister, Julie, clean out her room last week. There were many missing things found during their time in there.

Shanygne said...

I resemble that post... after nearly 8 years, I think Em has finally found that taking pride in her room may just be reward in itself... let's see if it lasts...