My List of....Important Parenting Lessons I Learned While Cleaning My Sons' Room.

1. Never, ever try to figure out what a mystery stain is by smelling, or worse tasting, it.

2. Never trust the trash. Burn all the old, worn out undies otherwise they'll somehow teleport back to the drawer.

3. If it is put in their closet, boys will wear any article of clothing- whether it's their 12 year old sister's pajamas or mom's t-shirt.


4. Put two and two together- if you find evidence of hair clippings on the floor and your son has been wearing a hat indoors all morning, chances are someone was playing barber shop. When you confront the culprit, remember to be grateful that he stopped at his own hair and didn't try his skills on his little brother.

5. When pushed into a corner, always assume that your son is lying- then what a pleasant surprise you'll have if you find out that he is actually telling the truth!

6. If they fess up quickly, keep digging- chances are they are hiding something worse.

7. Divide and conquer- always question them separately so they can't get their stories straight.

8. Kids need to know their boundaries. Let them know that you are now and always will be smarter than them, so they shouldn't ever try to pull one over on you.

9. When trying to decide how to manage your sons' closet, think about how you would organize it for a monkey, then make it one step easier to handle than that.

10. If you think you are doing something nice for your kids and they'll really appreciate it, get over it. They won't.


11. Necessity dictates that a boy's room has it's own cleaning schedule. Change the sheets 2 or 3 times as often as you would in any other bedroom in the house.

12. Don't ever err on the side of "it's probably clean"- just wash it.

13. The perfect punishment for an out of control, pig sty of a room is to collect all the things they love most and then secretly smuggle them into the basement storage room. Later, pour yourself a nice big Diet Coke and watch them fruitlessly search, and search, and search............

#14, and The Most Important lesson I learned today is to make sure that your husband doesn't leave for work with your car keys so that you are stuck home all day with nothing better to do than complete all the jobs you've been putting off forever because you really don't want to do them.....like cleaning your sons' room!!!