the bedroom bonanza
OK, I should say up front that I have no idea what a bonanza actually is, so maybe this has nothing at to do with a bonanza - but it’s a fun word to say, and works well with bedroom. The alliteration pulls it all together, don’t you think?
But there is a bedroom something-or-other going on here. 8 of our children are evenly divided between 2 bedrooms (the baby still sleeps in her little bed in our room). We have chosen not to divide them by age, because we feel that leads to some “clique-ish-ness” wherein the older ones and younger ones, finding themselves segregated, begin to resent the presence of each other and territorial disputes arise.
I should also mention that even though my house is not and never has been spotless, perhaps I have a touch of CDO. You don’t know what that is? It’s like OCD but with the letters in alphabetical order, the way they should be. I say this because in my little world, letters and numbers ought to be arranged in a sensible order. My blog links are in alphabetical order. I once tried to keep our music CDs in alphabetical order but gave up because I was feeling tempted to violent crimes, but that’s another story…
We have an age-integrated family, so the children were divided in a very neat and orderly fashion. Bedroom 1 held Child 1, Child 3, Child 5, and Child 7. Bedroom 2 held Child 2, Child 4, Child 6 and Child 8. Don’t worry. We use names on most occasions, but the symmetry of the numbers was too beautiful to overlook.
But things were divided more evenly than we intended. We have 4 messies and 4 neatniks. There were 2 of each in each bedroom. This might sound like a workable arrangement, but alas! it was not. The neatniks drove the messies to distraction. The messies drove the neatniks to violence. Tempers flared up, tears fell down, and people were Not Happy.
So now we’ve switched things up a bit. The numbers don’t look as neat and orderly: children #1, #4, #5, and #8 are in one room, #2, #3, #6, and #7 in the other; but one room is clean and the other is a mess. The psyches of the children seem far more tidy as well, and now I only have to harp on the residents of one bedroom to Please Clean Up So I Can Find a Path To The Bed.
And really, the numbers aren’t so bad. The ranks of the residents of each bedroom both add up to the same total: 18. My world still makes sense.
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Filed under: big family, methods
Hehehe. I love it!
hehe Cute.
In the very beginning of bedroom sharing, #2 drove #1 nuts by making messes and swearing it wasn’t he who made the mess.
Seven years ago all three were in the same room. Both #2 & #3 drove #1 completely nuts.
When we moved here 3+ years ago, #1 and #4 each got their own room. #2 & #3 share. #1 keeps his room spotless all. the. time. #4 does ok and will clean everything to perfection on her own when it does get wild. Now that #2 is old enough to care about dirt, he’s getting paid back for his earlier offenses and HATES it.
Life is tough.
I loved this blog post!! That’s an awesome way to work it
Oh and if it’s any consolation, I have all our music in ABC order by catagory.
hehehe
you arranged our cds in alphabetical order?
when?
seriously …
when?
Ok I’m trying to guess which group is the messies and which is the neatniks but I’m thrown off by #1 and #8 being in the same group. I imagine #8 is a messy, but am not so sure that #1 is! I imagined #1 to be a neatnik. Is it possible #8 is a neatnik??????
hunney,
Exactly. Acts of violence, I’m telling you.
It was back when we had the 100 disc CD player, which was another organizing disaster for me and near-death experience for you. Betcha never knew that either..
You are super funny. Thanks for writing such light-hearted (but terribly serious) things to brighten my day!
That is too funny!!
Amy
That is neat! I liked this post… messies, neatniks. Cool.
Ha! That is a hilarious post!
I so have your sense of CDO - that’s great!
I found your numbers interesting. My husband would think we were nuts, but I like stuff like that too!
I love the idea of neat niks and messies in different rooms. We currently have the children in two different bedrooms, but we have them segregated by gender. It wouldn’t work for your family but works for our family of four boys and five girls. I would love to switch the girls into two rooms and when/if we do I think the neats and the messies is the best way. Thanks for the idea!
LOL! I love it!
I think your bedroom arrangements are absolutely excellent (and my cds are arrranged in chronological order of composer’s birth date, which makes sense to me! )
Our Dvd’s are in a DVD/CD Organizer (it should be a Cd/DVD organizer since CD’s came out first but I digress) They are arranged by topic than alphabetical. So there is the Steven Segal section the American History section (these get used to HS and the kids don’t even realize how lucky they are but again I digress) etc. I tried keeping the CD’s alphabetical but Dusty complained that he couldn’t find anything if his classic rock was mixed in with the Christian and kid CD’s. HUH you’re about to turn 48 and still can’t work the alphabet? Now his are separate just so it won’t drive me crazy.
Hello there ~
I’m enjoying reading through your large family posts. They are helping me to look for new creative ways to make our three bedroom bungalow work for our family of 8.
With four boys in an 11×13′ room, I fear I am losing the Battle of the Bedroom. They don’t even seem to see the mess. When I send them in to clean (every single day), they just look around as if to say, “What?”
I only have one neatnik so far. I am hoping that early intervention will help with the 2-year-old and baby.