Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

When The Child was an infant she had a basket full of squishy toys and a shelf of books. The shelf of books was at her level so she could chew on them at her leisure. She had a tiny closet of a room, an actual closet, but with French doors and a tiny cathedral window. The closet walls were painted apricot with a hand painted (moi) border of flowers at head-height. Her futon folded up for sitting during the day. Two straw hats hung on the wall, along with a couple of sweet pictures.

The day we found our house she ran into the room that would be hers and spun in circles singing, "My room, my room, my room". How could we not buy the house? The entire endeavor was motivated by only two forces: The Spouse's desire to be landed gentry and the reality that a growing child cannot inhabit a closet forever.

But as I've mentioned in previous posts, nature abhors a vacuum and empty rooms abhor their emptiness. Space desires to be filled. And filled and filled and filled. The Child's room has been one area of our home that has firmly resisted 27 fling boogies and all other FLY attempts to bring it to heel. Which has been frustrating because it has not been for lack of trying. It's not like The Child and I haven't played "Clean Sweep" at least a dozen times. But somehow things just keep crawling back into that room and taking over. Additionally, this has created a situation wherein The Child's own attempts to keep the room picked up have been frustrated because she never knows where to begin. Which I totally get.

The other day I said to her, in general frustration and not in anger, mind, that I was tempted to reduce her room to one of everything and start all over. Oddly, she didn't object. So yesterday I went in there and started flinging. The first layer was true flingage...recyling, garbage and dirty laundry. Then I turned to her library and immediately felt overwhelmed. (Clutter really does mess with your head). I remembered that she'd had one shelf of books as a teeny thing so went for that standard. I pulled out a box worth of books that I know she isn't going to read anytime soon, as well as some I know she'll never read. The former are waiting in the garage, the latter were flung. I put all her notebooks and journals into another box, leaving only one in her room. I boxed up a mess o' keepsakes which may be important but we'll see if she notices first. (Anything of assumed significance isn't going to leave the house just yet).

I made some good progress but here's the thing: when she came home yesterday the first words out of her mouth were, "I was thinking about that 'one thing' thing you said and if it's ok, I'd like to keep Aloyisus, Lovey and Jacqueline on my bed. The rest can go away for awhile". Given that she owns something like a dozen stuffed animals, all with names, spouses and back story, this 75 percent reduction was quite something. And tres affirming, because it means we're on the right course. It was also pretty great that she could actually use her desk for homework last night.

And in another development that suggests that we haven't completely screwed up as parents: she informed me this morning that she turned down the opportunity to be in the school choir this year. She loves to sing and very much enjoyed being in the group last year. So why didn't she do it? "Tuesday and Friday are the only days when I don't have an extracurricular and I just thought it would be too much". An 11 year old making a thoughtful, considered and wise decision all on her own? I'm kvelling.