Operation Bag

Here is a recent column that I wrote for Zachary's school newsletter...


I knew that I had hit rock bottom when I inadvertently cleaned up the entire waiting room at the kid’s pediatricians office one morning. I am not proud to admit it, but it certainly was a wake up call for me! And considering I wasn’t doing a whole lot of sleeping at that time, it worked much better than the extra super large cup of coffee I drank before I left the house. Luckily our newborn daughter and I were the only two in the waiting room at the time. None the less, when I realized what I had done, my face turned purple with embarrassment.

As I waited for the nurse to call us in, I recognized that I had fallen into a cycle of behavior of constantly picking up after my family instead of letting them do it for themselves. I suppose it happened because it was just easier to do it myself rather than argue or badger. But how could I possibly fit in the family time that I absolutely adored in between nursing a new baby, taking care of four other children, the house and then organizing everyone’s things? Something needed to change and it was up to me to initiate it.

In the past, I found that if I nagged enough, my family would reluctantly put their stuff away. But again, I didn’t sign up to be the worlds biggest nag. (That’s one of my famous mom quotes that I use when I am frustrated, you can use it if you want to.) I also tried to ignore the piles of stuff that accumulated throughout our home, but that became not only annoying, but dangerous. “How many times do I need to trip over this stegosaurus before I break my neck?”

That night I made an important announcement at dinnertime. “Since my pleas for help around here have gone unanswered, I have decided to take every item that is not put into it’s proper place by the end of the day and put it into a bag to be given to charity at the end of the week. I need more help around here, and this is my only choice. Mom is tired,” (The guilt trip usually works around here.) As I finished my overly dramatic speech, I glanced at everyone’s blank faces hoping to get some sort of an apology…something…anything? But the only response I got was from our then five year old, “What’s a plea?”

After a brief explanation, everyone in the house (over the age of five) was ready for the challenge. Operation BAG was put into place. (Don’t ask me why it was called this, but it stuck ,so we kept it.)

Before bedtime, I annoyingly spotted many violations. And since it was the first day I issued a warning. Everyone, including Neil, jumped up from what they were doing and scrambled to put their stuff away. But the second day, I decided to simply collect my defiant family’s belongings without a word. The BAG contained a camera, Gameboy, two baseball hats, a deck of Pokemon cards, three socks?, a sticker book, a belt, and two Webkinz animals. Oddly, nobody even asked where their beloved belongings were the next day! And as day three closed I hesitantly put even more neglected items in the BAG. I was beginning to think that I would need to change this experiment’s name to Operation DUMPSTER. Finally, on the fourth day, they began to notice.


“Mom! Have you seen my baseball hat? Is it in the BAG?”
“Who took my pack of gum? It didn‘t just vanish…Oh man, the BAG!”
Or my own husband trying to sweet talk me, “Kel, you look very pretty today. Where is the BAG? I need my belt.” And to all, I simply replied “Did you put it where it belongs?” (Since when did I start sounding like my own mother?)

It took a disappointing four days for the littering scoundrels to realize how much stuff they left around the house! I wish I could say that things changed dramatically since then, they didn’t. But they did change a little. You’ll no doubt find piles of clutter decorating our humble home, but at the end of the day we work together to put it all away (usually). And I definitely have more time to enjoy my husband and kids, which is great since my newborn baby girl is now an extremely active toddler who enjoys leaving her toys every where just like her big brothers and sisters!