Headstrong

Montana is our little messy roomer. She can have her room perfectly clean one morning and a complete disaster by the afternoon. I know most kids have messy rooms at one time or another, but Montana takes it to a different level. She throws anything and everything on the floor so that you can't even find any carpet to walk on. She has books, toys, dirty clothes, clean used-to-be-folded clothes, paper cut into 1 million pieces, pictures, taken-apart frames, blankets, pillows, shoes, stickers, and so on and so on and so on.

Monday the kids didn't have school, thanks to Mr. King. So I issued the verdict. Everyone go to your room and feel free to come out whenever it's clean. A few minutes later, Reed and JJ emerge. No Montana. I go up to check on her and she is sitting on her bed coloring. Room still a total disaster.

I told her I was going to the gym and maybe she would have it clean when I came home. An hour or so later, I was back from the gym. Still no progress on the room.

By lunch, I figured we were in for a little power struggle. So I took her lunch up to her and she ate in her room. I think she actually liked it. She had a cute little smile on her face and it was like a little picnic adventure for her.

By dinner, I realized this wasn't ending anytime soon. She still hadn't done a thing to clean her room and she was busy cutting up little pieces of colored foam. She had dinner in her room. It was still kind of cool.

This morning after family prayer, she had to go back up again. She was not happy about it this time. Especially since it was another snow day and the kids were on a 2 hour delay and Reed was making pancakes for breakfast. But she got over it soon enough and happily ate her pancakes and bacon up in her room (maybe I should bring her bread and water instead!)

By lunch, she had picked up a few books and put them back in her book basket. I considered keeping her home from school, but decided that was more of a inconvenience for me since I had some errands I needed to run. So she went to school and then came home and went straight back up.

Montana is such a social little being and it was killing her to have to eat by herself again. She started crying and said she didn't want to eat alone. Be still my aching heart. That was hard to take. I wanted to cry right along with her. I'm not being mean, right? This is simply a natural consequence. She knows exactly what she needs to do and she is fully capable. I have to keep reminding myself of that. Because right now it just feels mean.

We'll see how the saga continues tomorrow...