The Game and Lounge Room

I have had on my list of things we need to get done around the house one particular thing for several weeks now.   It started when my daughter and Madison moved their secret hideout to a little room off my children's bedroom.  The room was marked as unfinished storage space on our plans, but when we discovered it was tall enough to put a full-sized door into it, we made the storage space an extension of the children's room.

As far as living space goes, most of the room doesn't count due to the angled ceiling given that the room is at the corner of the house.  None of this matters to my children, though, as they are short, and the lower ceiling doesn't bother them.

When the Secret Hideout was (finally) moved to this room I've always called the playroom, I told them they had made a good choice because it was a bigger space and they should keep the room there for a while because of the superior qualities of the room, etc.  Basically, it was where their fun mess could be contained better.

The Secret Hideout got out of hand—way out of hand.  The amount of stuff they brought in there was impressive.   We had them clean a little bit of it up before quarantine started, but it was hardly a dent. For weeks I've said we were going to work on the room.  On Friday, I told the entire family we were cleaning up the playroom today.   No one wanted to do it, including me.

At 3:00 P.M. we gathered in the children's bedroom and started work.   We cleaned off the tops of their dressers in the process, another huge dumping ground for them both.   I had to get very firm with my daughter several times, which was interesting because she was the one most responsible for the mess in the room.

It took the four of us two hours to get things cleaned, including multiple bags of stuffed animals to the attic.  To encourage the children to let go of items we said things were going to be stored in the attic, they would be available later,  for storage,  not to get rid of today.   This worked and they both were fine freeing up space for other things.  

You couldn't walk at all or see the floor in the room.   There were mattresses on the floor and the Christmas fort building set was used to partition the room into more, little rooms.   It was then junked up with anything and everything.  It took a while.

Early on in the cleaning process, my daughter said to us, "I think this room should be called, 'The Game and Lounge Room.'"  I  help but laugh at the name.   It's a great name for the room.  I couldn't have come up with a better name if I'd tried.

The Big Boy Update:  My son could have done screens yesterday after school but when he found out Blake wanted to spend time with him, he walked straight out of our house and over next door (without me conirming when Blake would be ready).  Blake was making some mini chess pies so my son stuck around and talked with Blake and his parents until Blake was free.    Apparently he was very polite and respectful while also being a lot of fun.   In this time of lockdown, I'm so glad we have this one family we're staying together with.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  With the newly named Game and Lounge Room now clean, my daughter can set out a larger game such as Monopoly and play it with her teacher, Ms. B.  She wanted to get the entire game set up tonight, giving each of them the correct amount of starting money.  She picked out their pieces, saying she was sure Ms. B. would want to be the cat.   I took a picture of the now clean room with her game ready and waiting for a computer with Ms. B's face  on the other side of the table next week.