The first is my slightly nasty living room carpet with the bits of dirt needing a vacuuming. The second is Miss Sara's room. I finally lost my patience and my willingness to not nag about her room this morning when I couldn't get to her dresser thingy. In front of the T-Shirt bin was; a Barbie cruise ship, 2 cardboard boxes ("cat palaces" that the cats won't go near) and her old laundry basket.

If it had been just the cruise ship I would've let it slide. Toys in a child's room are to be expected. Garbage everywhere isn't. *sighs*

I won't clean after her in her room. Every time I'm tempted to do it I remember teaching my 17-year-old brother-in-law how to do laundry. To me that memory reminds me of the other place Sara calls home. Where there are "magic cleaning fairies" (Sara's words) in the form of her grandmother and the maid they hire. That's ridiculous to me.

The only way to learn to be self-sufficient is to do it, I believe. And for me to follow after my daughter cleaning up stuff that she's more than capable of taking care of herself is doing nobody any favours. When she came her full-time this summer she was presented with a spotless, well-furnished room. In the months since it's become a garbage can.

There's crumbled pieces of autumn leaves in each corner, then various papers on top of that, then more garbage then toys. She has so many toys and nowhere to put them away because all the put-away areas are filled with crap. There's a chest for the bigger toys but it's buried under a foot of piled stuff.

It's not squalor -- yet. It's skirting that edge enough that I'm angry looking at it. I'm angry that my daughter doesn't know how to clean up after herself. I'm angry that she even has the thought of "magic cleaning fairies", (much less apply that term to a human being) in her mind. I'm angry that at 8 years old, I'm the one teaching her how to clean.

I can't imagine being part of a household without cleaning or feeling really fucking nasty & guilty that I'm not cleaning. I've choked under blinding depression and still known deep down that I wasn't keeping up my end and that if I got help it was just that, help -- not the removal of my responsibility. Now I have a child that looks at me and says, "I'm not your SERVANT!" when told to pick up after herself. To pick up her toys. To take care of her spaces.

Thank god that Sara has learned to stop and think for herself. I'm going to sit with her tonight and talk to her about this. She has a deadline of March 6th to get her room to a level I find acceptable. Because if she doesn't ... that Saturday I'm coming in with garbage bags. *sighs*