Remarkably messy.

My daughter’s bedroom is a constant source of entertainment for me.  I am astounded at the enormous mess that can be created from the tiniest amount of effort on her part.  And I am amazed at the amount of effort (on my part, naturally) required to clean it all up again. 

When she was two, it was tissues.  She had an endless fascination with tissues, and would sit for hours carefully ripping them into tiny, weeny shreds, and spreading them over ever available surface.  I, as the super-modern ever-patient mum, had to remind myself that she was merely indulging her inquisitiveness, as I spent the next three days picking tiny white shreds out of the carpet.

When she was six, it was games.  Counters, dice (or is that die?  I can never remember the plural), tiny models of people, tiny white wishbones and apples (Operation, anyone?), any and every component of a game would have to be taken out, examined, and abandoned on the floor.  I lost count of the number of plastic bags I had lined up on a shelf, each containing a selection of brightly coloured bits of plastic and card; if we ever wanted to play a game, we needed at least an hour’s notice so we could retrieve the appropriate bits from the bags.  We should have paid the neighbourhood kids to do a scavenger hunt - give each kid a board game with all the bits missing and a pound for the first one to come back with all the playing pieces.  Although, come to think of it, with the number of times we had to go ‘hunt the counters’, it would probably have been cheaper to ditch all the bags and buy the games again.

Now she is a glorious 13.  Yes, we are the proud parents of a Teenager.  If ever a word deserves to be capitalized, it’s that one.  Her room is a certifiable disaster area.  You know those Super Party Poppers, the ones that are the size of a kitchen roll tube, and you twist them and millions of sparkly bits of confetti and paper streamers shoot out and settle everywhere like multicoloured snow?  Well, her room looks a bit like someone has done that, with a Mega Party Popper the size of a Ford Focus, and filled with books, paper, pens, clothes (clean AND dirty, of course), soft toys, sweet wrappers, CD’s, and various electrical bits and bobs. 

Yesterday me and Mum rolled up our sleeves and got stuck in.  Six hours and several cups of tea later , her room is beautifully neat and tidy.  There is a bed.  That should’t really be news, but I haven’t actually seen it for at least a fortnight.  The carpet is beige - I did vaguely know this, but it’s so long since I’ve laid eyes on it I’d almost forgotten.  I have a full cupboard of towels again - a bit strange really, as I asked her a few days ago if she had any towels in her room and she assured me she didn’t. 

The most satisfying part of the day was the last half hour when we bagged all the rubbish that we’d tossed out of the doorway.  A total of eight bags (four were recycling, so we can at least claim to be ‘green’).  I am just a bit concerned that the cat seems to have vanished too…