This decision caused all kinds of drama. Obstacles to overcome. Fairness to be meted out. My own wants and desires put aside. I know it's my house, but I also need to do what's best for everyone. After Jared laid out his case for also getting his own room, I wandered around the house trying to decide how to make it work and where to put my crap so the proposed changes could be made.
That's how we spent our family home evening on Monday. Trying to figure out the configuration, the problems that would arise from the configuration, and how to go about making such changes. Since we couldn't get a new house to accommodate my exercise equipment, it got banished to outer darkness -AKA - the outside back garage. All the crap I'd put into one of the closets had to be gotten rid of and a new home found for it....so essentially most of it got donated.
Then it was on to the dance and logistics of moving 4 kids out of their rooms and switching them around. We had 4 rooms to work with. My kids were taking up 2 bedrooms. One room was our "cyber" room and one was the "play/exercise room." We got rid of both of the extra rooms and gave everyone their own rooms. This is something that has never happened in the history of our little family. I'm a firm believer in learning how to live with someone. They are gonna be doing it for the rest of their lives when they get married....better start learning now. Well, they've been doing it and there is a pretty big age gap between the kids. If Ethan and Jordyn could have shared a room, I would have done that, so since they can't, we are giving them all their own rooms - for now.
The biggest mess? Moving all the toys and junk out of the playroom so Ethan could move into it. Below is our loft area and the entire contents of the playroom (except for the exercise equipment which already had made its way to the back garage). I thought that I should call up the show "hoarders" and have them come on over. This is how it starts. You take on a massive project like moving 4 rooms, loose energy and think "I'll do it tomorrow" and 10 years later....
We needed a new full mattress. I didn't think that it was fair that Emma got the last new mattress and she was trying to get another one this time. The problem? She was moving back downstairs again. We would have to take her mattress down the stairs and drag a new mattress up the stairs to give to Ethan. The kids decided that was way too much work and Emma ended up with the new mattress again.
Not a single kid stayed in a room they were in. One of the rooms that has only ever had boys in it, now has Jordyn (we had to detox the bathroom for her) in it and one of the rooms that has only ever had girls in now has Jared in it, and Ethan has never not been in the same room and he moved. Emma has been downstairs before and ended up there again.
When we got to this point in the moving process, I txt my husband "I've lost the will to live" with the below picture attached.
You know when you are moving and you look around at all the little crap that hasn't made it into a box because you don't know how to deal with it? Yep, that's were we were in the process when I felt like giving up. This is also when the likelihood of something being thrown away was pretty high. I just tell myself, "we got our moneys worth out of this, so goodbye" and away into the trash it goes....unless it is decent enough for someone else to get pleasure out of.
There wasn't an area of the house that wasn't stuffed with the contents of someones room. The above picture doesn't even do justice to what was actually there. That is only about 1/4 of what got thrown there. My husband has recently come to the realization that he is a hoarder. They boy's closet was so packed with old clothes that they weren't wearing that it was oppressive when it was all hauled out to be sorted Nate's been in charge of their closet because I would just get mad every time I walked into the boys' room). I originally thought about saving the mess for him to go thru and clean up and then I realized that what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. S,o I took on the project and freed our home from the clutter. It was liberating. I did save some things that jared had outgrown for Ethan, but it was a small fraction of what was being hoarded. Now, I've got to get all the bags out of the house before he can start going thru them and trying to keep stuff :0) He was pretty terrified when he got home and saw that I didn't save the project for him.
Even though the project was overwhelming and it started feeling like there was no hope of ever finishing....we finished wed night. The only problem is that my living room is filled with stuff to take to the scout garage sale, so my house is still looking pretty bad, but if you come up the stairs it will look beautiful.
When Emma and Jordyn went their separate ways, they evenly divided their assets. It went really smooth and I really didn't hear about it until it was over and they showed me what each of them took in the separation. What caused the most contention? It was between Ethan and Jordyn. Mormon Ads. Can you believe it? They were in the closet that could no longer exist in the new arrangement. When Ethan laid eyes on them, he had to have them. He figured that since it was his idea, he should be able to pick the six that he wanted and then Jordyn could have the six remaining. I have never seen so many tears in my life over spiritual posters. The one that caused the most contention? The pizza one talking about paying 1/10th for tithing. Also the "you're never alone" picture with Christ. Ethan needed it to protect him in his room now that he was all by himself. There was were a couple other ones that they fought over, but I solved the problem by each getting to pick 1 picture at a time and Ethan got to start since it was his idea to get them. We had a melt down about half way thru the process over that darn pizza picture and Jordyn finally couldn't take the crying anymore and gave Ethan the picture and went her way with her 6. That's a picture of his stash of pictures to hang up.
Ok, now I know that no one else enjoys my kids as much as I do, but this is all about me, so deal. The 2 youngest already had rules for their room established before they were even done loading everything in. Ethan's is first up and his is more of a to do list:
1. Be awesome
2. start making bed after waking
3. hang up posters
4. start getting in habit of waking up at 6:00
5. brush teeth well twice a day (do better)
6. work on getting an exotic pet
7. start showering more
must grow your hair!
Next up is Jordy and she has some rules:
Rules - thank you and please make sure that you follow these rules
1. Don't touch my stuff without asking
2. If you take it out you put it back where you found it when you are done with it
3. you cannot be mean in this room
4. NO BOYS ALLOWED - unless dad or baby
5. Do not ever ever whisper. If you have something to say, say it in front of everyone.
6. Don't touch the posters
Seriously loving my kids and their to do list and rules. They are awesome!
I'm actually pretty surprised that they wanted those ads. The kids were just giving me a hard time a couple of days ago about the decor in our house. When I said I wanted to hang some more stuff up permanently for seminary - because I'm hoping it is at our house and not my partners, it led to the following conversation. After pleading with me to absolutely not permanently hang any additional stuff in our house, Emma said that when her friends come over they are initially like "wow, really nice house" and then they are like "wow, what's with Jesus?" Jared chimed in with a "yeah, he's everywhere, always watching." It was making me a little sad that they were telling me how they didn't like our home that is our temple. My husband consoled me by reminding me about my friend Tom when I was in high school. He would get embarrassed by his parents being super religious and I loved it at his house.....and look how it turned out? I got baptized in large part because of his family. So now my kids can get even more embarrassed because Ethan and Jordyn just kicked it up another notch by added all the ads in their rooms. hahaha There is no doubt when you come to my house what is important to our family and what we believe. My home is an outward expression of how I feel on the inside. Essentially, it's my testimony.
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