Holding Firm

We interpret this post to bring you a crucial public service announcement.

It is Election Day in the United States today.  Get out there and VOTE!!!!!

We now resume our regularly scheduled blog post.

Currently, I'm still holding firm, but lend me your support before I weaken.

Rosie (14 yo) is a world-class clutterer.  She gets it naturally.  You should see the piles of newspapers that her dad leaves all over the house.  (Oh, I forgot, you did in an earlier post.)

And I admit, it's easier to let her get away with it.  The girl knows how to do her own laundry, at least to the point of getting them in and out of the washer and drier- BUT- the child can't won't put the clean clothes away!  She just leaves them piled on a table near the drier.

A few weeks ago, one of her clothes catalogs came in and she picked out some clothes in it.  It was a sale catalog and there were a few things that she had chosen that I would be willing to buy for her.

BUT

I told her I that I wouldn't place the order until she put away all of her clean clothes.  I really didn't think that this was asking too much, but I guess that I was wrong.  Have the clothes been put away? No.  Has there been wailing that she doesn't have enough time to do that? Yes.  Has there been wailing that she doesn't know how to a) fold her clothes or b) hang up her clothes?  Yes and yes.  (And of course she knows how to do both- at least to some extent.  In fact, she evens knows how to use an iron- when she wants to!)

Rosie has asked several times to place the order.  "It's a sale catalog, mom.  Everything that we want will be sold out!! (whine)"  Nope, this time, mom is holding firm (but it's soooo hard).  I've even told her that she can use her own money (a Visa gift card) to buy the clothes- but she doesn't want them THAT much!

But I can feel myself slipping.  Not on the clothes, but on shoes.  Her shoes are spread around the house.  But worse than that is that she has shoes that she has (probably) outgrown- or certainly ones that are worn out.  But do they ever get thrown away? Nope.

Rosie told me that she needs a new pair of sneakers.  And I concur.  But I told her that we weren't going to get them until she/we goes through the masses of shoes.  Again, not an impossible task.

But my problem is that I saw a pair of black sneakers that I wanted and the store is having a buy one, get 1/2 off sale.....

Okay, I'm still holding firm- for now.

Comments

[Nancy]

Ha! Hang in there! My son was a major slob with the clothes strewn from the bedroom to the laudry room - clean & dirty. I never knew how he could tell the clean ones. One day, a nice rainy, stormy day, I gathered all his clothes up and put them in laundry baskets in the back yard. My house was clothes free! He has never left his clothes scattered around the house again. I may have to remind him to pick up the clothes on the bedroom floor but that's the only floor they're on and he picks them up as soon as he is told - don't want Mom to go beserk again.

[Kristi]

When I was a teenager, my dad picked up all of mine and my sister's clothes and threw them in a pile in the garage. Not fun.

[Ilona]

Hang in there! You're doing the right thing. The kicker that would keep me holding firm is the fact that she doesn't want this stuff enough to spend her own money. If she doesn't want it that much, then she can deal with it if she loses out through her own stubbornness.

Stand strong, mom!

[jean]

Stay strong. You are my idol.

[ora]

A follow-up. I did order the clothes- but she had put away the clothes that I had wanted her to do. And the only reason that I ordered the stuff is that they were useful items. But the package came in, and the dress is sooooo short. She'll wear it with leggings, she says.