boys in beds

Shortly before eight o’clock this morning, before leaving to take my daughter to a (routine) doctor’s appointment, I ran up to the boys’ room to give them a few instructions. I sailed into the middle of the room — earlier, trotting up and down the hall, I’d noticed the lamp light shining out from under the door so I knew they were awake — surveyed the chaos and both boys, cozy in their beds, and said, “Don’t move. I’m getting my camera.”

Their room makes me want to pull my hair out. With the hardwood floors and three big windows, it has so much potential, but the boys could care less. Just a few weeks ago, my older son removed the area carpet — I forget why — so now there isn’t even a rug to soften the space. I’ve mostly given up on getting them to keep it tidy, though every couple days, like today, I’ll lay down the law: NO LUNCH UNTIL YOU PUT YOUR CLOTHES AWAY. And then they do, but it hardly makes a dent. Clearly, this room won’t be appearing on a Pinterest board any time soon.

Oh, well. At least the space is getting used. And if the boys don’t mind the mess — on the contrary, they practically revel in it — then why get my panties in (too much of) a twist?

This morning when I stormed in, my older son was watching a lecture in preparation for his Anatomy and Physiology class that started today. (He called me afterward to tell me he loved the professor. She’s so enthusiastic, he said, that at one point she jumped up on a lab table while lecturing.)

My younger son was working on the control panel from his remote control car. He’s dismantled it to see how it works. Last night he showed me the three motors, one for the steering, one to spin the back wheels and one to spin the front wheels — I appreciated his excitement, but the subject matter made my eyes glaze over — and later this morning I found him at my computer watching a how-to video on installing solar panels. (And yes, that is a glue gun in his bed. Why do you ask?)

This same time, years previous: our little dustbunnies, one year and one day, the quotidian (1.9.12), earthquake cake.

6 Comments

  • Ernie

    Oh how I relate to this. I beg my boys (and my girls) to keep some order from time to time. That just prompts my 15 yr old to gather clean laundry off his floor and dump it in the dirty laundry in the laundry room. It makes me nuts! They also leave wet bath towels on the floor DAILY. ugh!

  • karen

    So I guess it is just me … I've never been able to organize or keep tidy spaces … if I showed you the room I am sitting in I'm pretty sure you'd not be able to suppress an audible gasp. For the most part, 2/3 of my kids (girl 14, boy 10), middle girl (13) the sort of exception, keep their rooms need as pins or initiate their own clean ups of their spaces. Coincidence? I think not. I figure I must be a genius. Or … something …

  • Lana

    And now as empty nesters I go upstairs each night and all the rooms are clean and ready for company. And all we wish for is those adult children to come and stay in their rooms.

  • Gigi

    Ugh! Children! Particularly boy children! They NEVER see the potential. My son has a very nice room…one that would be MUCH nicer if he kept it clean AND pulled his bed away from the corner (it could easily be centered on a different wall and his bed then wouldn't look like a prison cell cot!)

  • Anonymous

    Lol! The glue gun…my 9 year old has one very close by to his bed too. This room is his room. There are many, many cables, cords and chargers and old electric calculators and bits of paper, and yarn and stuff – everywhere! I "tidied" one night before bed and then he told me he couldn't sleep – the room felt "too clean". I see I am not alone and nowhere near a tidy room anytime soon.

  • kay saylor

    My daughter is the same way. I don't understand the open drawers. I will have her clean her room and the next day I will go up there and every drawer on her two dressers will be open and a pile of clothes will be on the floor. How can you find anything when all of the drawers are open? It would follow that you are only wearing items from the top drawer, no? You had me laughing with the glue gun. I have found that in many odd places as well.

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