Cleaning a Little Girl’s Room

My goodness, I feel like I climbed Mt. McKinley today.

Or am I supposed to call it Denali now?  See, I live in Alaska and still struggle with this.

Either way, I’ve certainly accomplished great things in the span of one afternoon: Amaya and I cleaned her room.

As mom to a darling little seven-year-old girl, I’m learning a few things.  Allow me to share.

Lesson #1
Never, ever-ever (forgive me: I’ve been singing the new Taylor Swift song for two days now), never let your 7-yr-old’s room go more than seven days without a full inspection of every party bag (2 liters of candy wrappers), suitcase (damp, moldy? jeans from sleepover two weeks ago), floral box (ah-hah! there’s the necklace that’s been missing since June!) and desk drawer (hmmmm, are those mommy’s five rolls of Scotch tape?). 

On the upside, we had a delightful afternoon of discovery.

Lesson #2
Seven-year-olds have a very different idea of “clean” than mommy does.

Lesson #3
Provide plenty of storage in seven-year-old’s room for trinkets, jewelry, lipgloss, nail polish, erasers, McDonald’s toys, beads, binoculars, sunglasses, tea-sets, doll clothes, stuffed animals, purses!, books, markers, empty perfume bottles (“because they’re so pretty, mom!”), feathers, Sunday School papers, homeschool crafts, oh. my. goodness. the. list. never (ever-ever).stops.

You gotta love these little girls.  To my sister Stephanie with whom I shared a room (yes, and a twin bed) until we were almost 10 & 12: “Did we do this, too??”

I simply cannot recall.

I recovered her stool with the same fabric as her chair, and then we shampooed her carpet….a task way overdue. 

Ahhhhh – clean carpet makes momma happy.

I realized when I snapped these pictures that those silhouettes and letter ‘A’ seem low – don’t you think?  Oh well.  A non-high-priority task for another day.

This shoe holder we positioned on her closet door awhile back has been a life saver (refer to Lesson #3 above).  However, today I got downright crazy and removed her closet door altogether:

Quite simply, this door has always been in the way and made her already-tight closet entrance even more claustrophobic.  I’d finally had it.  Within two minutes, the door was removed and relocated to a closet downstairs, and the trinket holder was relocated to the back of her bedroom door since there was no way we could afford to give up that baby. 

Voila! 

The two of us almost started dancing to Taylor Swift in there together.  Almost.  Because we could, you know, what with all the space I just carved out in there.

There’s only one problem though.  Okay, maybe two.

The first problem is that when we painted her room, we opted not to paint the closet.  Why?  Because painting closets are boring.  Lots of work for not much impact = not much fun.

I’m regretting that decision now 🙁

And problem number two?  Although organized, her closet space certainly lacks character.  Seriously lacks the cuteness factor.  You won’t see this closet in Pottery Barn Kids or Land Before Nod.

Oh well.  I guess that’s for another day, too.  I’m just happy the floors are clean again. 

Wait, are those stacks of doll clothes piled along the floor on the right side of her closet again??  “Amaya!….”

Jaimee