Self-Motivated cleaning

“I am dividing my stuff into three bags: things I want to keep, things to get rid of and laundry.”

Tonight, quite suddenly, Nathan stood up from his computer in the living room, announced, “I’m going to clean my room,” and disappeared into his room.

Some time later he came out with a black garbage back and made the quote at the beginning of this blog.

Now, I agree that his room could use cleaning. In the spring of 2013 his room had been so full of unorganized stuff that we continually questioned whether it had a floor. Then last summer before our cruise, we motivated him to clean it with the promise of a 3DS if he did it on his own. Low and behold, his room did have a floor.

Since then there has been a gradual creep of stuff, but we could still see sections of the floor, and he could still sleep on his bed. I have suggested a few times that he could clean up, most recently over the summer break.

But today, he just said it, and started. Why today? That is the question that his parents are wondering. Most likely he wants to find stuff that has been misplaced. I can hope he has gotten a sense of neatness developing in his maturing personality.

Which leads to his interesting declamation. Interesting that 1/3 of his stuff is laundry.  Many people think all he has is camouflage (someone in his school class last week was “shocked” when they realized we wasn’t wearing camouflage one day). Perhaps in the coming days he will be wearing a greater variety, as the laundry soon overflows. and gets washed and sorted.