Roman Loses His Toys

May 11th, that was the deadline for Roman to get his room cleaned once and for all. James and I had just finished trying to give him his space not say too much about the mess in his room, but as the toys piled high and the floor could no longer be seen, and as it began to spill out into the hallway, we had to say enough is enough. One week he was given to clean it up. A deadline of May 11th at noon was given to him. Judging by the title of this blog, you can easily guess, he failed to meet that deadline.

This had to be the hardest thing I've done as a parent. With him standing by, over my lunch break, James and I removed every toy in his room, including his beloved race cars and star wars boys. His train table was disassembled and removed as well. All that was left behind was his bed and golf clubs - I was not about to threaten to throw away/sell his good sporting equipment. The noises from him during that process were heartwrenching and I cried through much of it too. I honestly don't know how James and I made it through, but following through with threats is something we're working hard on, so it had to be done.

Once the room was cleared he began to calm down. I returned to work and before my whopping 5 minute commute had ended, he was on the phone.... "Thank you mommy, we should have thrown all those toys out a long time ago. Now my room is so big and I can even practice my golfing in it!"

Okay.... not quite the response we were looking for, but a welcome change to the hysterics we faced the previous hour. That night I went through everything and sorted a lot of the small stuff into baggies ready for yard saling. Other stuff was sorted by type, some of which he will be able to earn back, but most of it will be thinned out as it is obviously too much and way too overwhelming for the little guy.

We will see how well he takes care of his toys and actually plays with them as he finds stragglers around the house that weren't confiscated and as he begins to earn back some of his favorites. We're hoping this was not all done in vain and that he will have learned a big lesson here, but only time will tell!