Trash Talk

Each and every night, since right around the time Avery learned how to walk (or so it seems), I have gone into her bedroom after she falls asleep at night to clean up all the trash that has accumulated in her room throughout the day. The most common items that I tend to pick up and throw away on a nightly basis are construction paper that she's cut into 1,000 tiny pieces, candy wrappers, pennies, rubber bands, yarn, goldfish cracker crumbs, sequins, the paper backing off of stickers, markers that have dried out because she didn't put the lid back on, envelopes and receipts. After years of begging her to throw away her own trash each night, with it simply not getting done on a regular basis, I gave in and started picking up all the trash myself. And then, a few nights ago, something dawned on me.

Duh, I should put a trash can in her room... I didn't say anything to her about it. I just put it next to her art table and art supplies, and waited to see what (if anything) would happen. So last night, as the kids drifted off the bed, I went into Avery's room and saw something in the trash can. Oh my goodness, it worked! Two candy wrappers, some yarn, a penny and some Goldfish crumbs, all in the trash can!

This idea of mine to put a trash can in Avery's bedroom has got to rank right up there with the idea I had a few years ago to make Avery start doing all of her own laundry when she was going through a phase of changing her clothes 10 times a day. I told her that she could change her clothes all she wanted, but she'd need to wash it all herself. The first couple of days, she thought doing the laundry was neat. But by about that 3rd day, she was sick and tired of doing all that laundry, and the multiple wardrobe changes ceased.

I may not be the sharpest tack in the tool box, but every now and then I get a good idea that works! I only wish I would have thought about this sooner!