When Yaya was little, she was very much like my oldest sister. My sister owned a blue metal trunk that held all her worldly possessions and Yaya had a little red box she called Lallalla ( my youngest sister’s makeup bag, the one VIP brand used to sell and airhostess used to carry in the 80’s. I remember watching a Mallu movie of Mammotty and Suhasini, where Suhasini as an airhostess is in love with Mammotty the pilot and she always carried Yaya’s Lallalla ) Everything Yaya owned was in her Lallalla. Her room was always tidy and perfect.
Then one day, the child that always kept the room neat and tidy vanished and was replaced by someone whose room is worst than a pigsty. ( In all fairness, I must admit that I can be messy at times, I have my days! )
Grade 11 has been really tough more so with her doing IB. She has to leave home at 6.30 am most mornings to attend extra classes at school and has tons of assignments to complete every other day. She works in the weekend.
I can live with some amount of mess, but will not accept left over food being left around. Sometimes, she won’t get time to eat her school lunch and when she gets home, in stead of throwing it in the bin, she chucks it on the floor in her room.
She is going to be 17 years old in about 7 months and I refuse to pick up after her. And so I do whatever it takes to get her to clean the room.
In this case, I collect dead cockroaches from around the house. The pest control company sprays around the door frame and often I find dead cockroaches outside the door. I collect them and keep them in Yaya’s room in areas she is sure to see. She is terrified of cockroaches..and the whole room gets cleaned.
It’s very funny to see how you can use something that your children absolutely hate to make them clean their rooms or do something. But it works !
J1289: Sometimes you got to do what you got to do.
I remember the song, in which her saree flies, was this the case?
https://bymyoldschool.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/p1070726.jpg
Swathi: Yep, that is the Lalala
Mine isnt afaid of any insects….excpt bee… now do I have to catch a live bee to make her room clean….
Swathi: Aiyyo..I was lucky Yaya is afraid of Cockroaches..My son on the other hand, it won’t sell. He collects speakers.. and I have threatened to throw one speaker out every week..miraculously he cleans his room every week.