Spring Cleaning the Children's Suite - It's No Earth Day Up There

My kids have the entire upstairs of our house to themselves. Two bedrooms, and adjoining bathroom, and a bonus room big enough to store all their toys, craft supplies, video games, fish, and apparently a landfill's worth of garbage. Yes, four bags to be precise. And that last bag - the chock full bursting at the seams bag? That's the one I filled after the kids both assured me that there was NO garbage, at all, none, zero, zip, left up there. I knew better.

I don't know why my children - the same children who throw a fit if they see me toss anything remotely recyclable into the trash, the same children who recently pressed my husband to call for his company to use only recycled plastics, the same children who won't let me leave the water running for more than 6 seconds at a shot - create so much trash.

And I know, yeah, yeah it's my fault. But really it's not because I don't buy them all the crap that ends up clogging their rooms so that one whole half of my house looks like the opening scene of Wall-E. Between the school treasure boxes, the award certificates they get for merely showing up and breathing at practically anything, competing grandparents, and their friends' ever increasingly generous birthday goodie bags - we've got a load of mess up there! Happy Earth Day!

Among the typical empty candy wrappers, spit laden gobstoppers, wadded up tissue, inkless pens, and toys that don't work, I found unidentified underwear, fishnet stockings for the Whore Barbie, and a pee-scented sleeping bag wadded into a closet.

Spring cleaning: magical.