Friday, January 2, 2009

Stefanie's Room Makes a Mom Proud

Ok so here goes the last of the entries meant to humiliate my lovely daughter into cleaning her room. She did stop in last night and after a couple of meals and a couple of loads of laundry, actually went upstairs and started packing her belongings into white trash bags. She isn't leaving our house because she is angry, humiliated, or resigned to the fact that my house isn't a large dumpster. She has decided to leave (for the second time actually) to move into an apartment with the new boyfriend.

I did tell her that she isn't financially ready to go out into the world again. She says it's different this time. Last year she moved out to live with a friend from school. It turned out that Stefanie really didn't know this girl like she thought she did and the bad situation got worse quickly. After about 5 months she moved home and vowed, "I'm NEVER moving out again!!!!!" Well, that wasn't what I had in mind but I didn't say much. She had left her room in a horrible mess last year and promised to come back and clean it for me. I waited and waited. Finally, I found myself drawn to that room again and again until I had hauled all the trash, clothes to get rid of, clothes to wash, water bottles, returnables (in Michigan we have to return all pop cans, and bottles to the store to get our deposit back), I found missing belongings that she was thrilled to get back and I found the carpet. I knew she had carpet. I saw it in 1994 when we moved in.

Danielle at this point had visions of turning the room into an office and I had random thoughts of a true guest room. All of our dreams were dashed last April when Stefanie moved back home. And all of the clutter was redeposited back on the disappearing carpet. But she is my daughter and I love her dearly and she needed to come back home and regroup.

Which brings us back to today. She plans on returning today to get more of her "stuff". Little does she know, her father is coming back this way with a load to be delivered on Monday in the Detroit area and will be back in the bosom of our shrinking family later this evening. He is an over the road truck driver and usually stays out a month at a time. But you never know when he will be in the area and they will just tell him to go home for the weekend. Stefanie hadn't planned on that. I told her that she needs to tell her father this time that she is moving out. Last year she left that to me. That sounds like the subject of another blog....

6 comments:

Far Side of Fifty said...

Sounds like she has learned nothing..sad. Maybe this time around.
You must be a better Mom that me, I would have thrown all that stuff in the yard by now and bought a lock for that door. :)

Jeanne Estridge said...

I've done that cleanup job a couple of times myself -- once for my step-daughter, and once for a nephew. When it's other people, I counsel tough love, but then I just do the same thing myself.

Anonymous said...

Good luck.

I hope it all works out (and you get an extra room and responsible daughter in the end).

You definitely have more patience than I do.

Photonuts said...

That looks like my husbands 'spare' closet and office...he says it is off limits to this clean freak...

Chicken Herder from Westville said...

That has happened to me and I was horrified of the mess she left me when she moved, and I even took pictures of it!

Then her dad let her move back home and she did it AGAIN!

Good luck!

Wunderwoman said...

OMG, am I glad other mom's have to deal with the same stuff, my 22 yr old boys room looks the same!!