*pooped*

I've been trying to infuse order into this house, again. Here are some truths:

1. Kids mess a house up.
   
2. More kids mess a house up even more than fewer kids do. And as you all remember clearly, I have more kids.
   
3. In normal circumstances, sending a kid off to school for eight or so hours a day would give a house and a mother eight or so hours' reprieve in the messing.
   
4. I have no such reprieve, obviously; we're all here 24/7, and while some of us are busy with schooling the littlest ones are messing things up like it's a job, like their lives depend on it.

So the main rooms—the living and piano rooms, the bathrooms, the kitchen, my bedroom—are tidy most of the time and cleaned deeply with regularity. There may be a scattering of toys or books or even a play set up, but we're pretty presentable. The kids' bedrooms can get untidy, because they're kids, and because I don't go upstairs (where Em, C, L, and K live) or downstairs (where J, Eth, and M live) often enough to follow up on "Have you cleaned your room?" Sounds lazy? I admit it. But I tell them to clean their rooms twice daily, and I give them specific, do-able jobs like "Now go hang up all the shirts" or "Now fold and put away all the pants" or "All the shoes should be put away" so that they don't just go in and get overwhelmed. And then there's the dump, which began as a sewing and storage room and ended up as a (you guessed it) dump for everything no one wanted to take care of. And given all the things I have to do every day just to keep the living spaces livable and make the meals and school the children, I've watched passively as the dump's floor level rose an inch per month with rejected toys, shoes we can only find one of, towels that now have a hole, projects that didn't get finished, etc.

Every so often I try to reclaim various spaces. Usually bedrooms, because after I've tackled Kyrie's bedroom and the little boys' bedroom I'm tuckered out and don't have energy for more.

Thursday I cleaned Kyrie's bedroom. A place for everything, and it's so cute—a total wonderland for a four-year-old girl. Checkmark.

Then I started on the little boys' room, and got their drawers cleaned out and reorganized, shoes culled and reorganized, and toys all up on shelves but not organized. Half a check. Thought I could finish today.

Yesterday, crazily, I began on the dump. After two solid hours of sorting sorting sorting, I had most of the floor cleared off. And today, after another several hours I have boxes and boxes of sorted clothes for each child, toys have been returned to their rightful places, we have orderly deposits of coats and boots and things that we'll need eventually but no one fits in this year, my fabric is refolded and organized... There's still lots to do, but I've found the ugly green carpet in the sewing room (not a dump anymore!) and I've vacuumed and I'm well on my way.

And I'm exhausted.

So I needed a break from that tedium, and I decided to go and look at J, Eth, and M's room one more time to do a bit more there.

And here's where the disappointment thunders in: it is every bit as bad as it was Thursday when I went down. Almost nothing is left in drawers (why do they pull out all the clothes they're not wearing?!) not a single shoe in the shoe places, wall to wall toys and empty shelves, beds unmade.

What was all the effort for? Why did I even try? Of course I just want to curl into bed and sleep and forget about the little boys' room altogether. If they make it a pig sty and a hazard to walk across, then THEY DESERVE TO LIVE IN IT. Phphfft.

(But then a tiny voice inside me whispers: if I want a clean house despite having seven children, don't I deserve to live in it too?)

So with a deep, fortifying breath and a large gulp of cold water, I'm off to the little boys' room Of Doom to try again. And this time, we're getting rid of things. If there's too much for them to take care of, then some of it GOES. *pushes up sleeves*