We finally got Russell's room clean and organized. Heck, the whole house is looking pretty good right now. I told Mike tonight that the fact that the house is looking good is really a good sign that I'm actually feeling better.

Russell's room was callthehealthdepartmentholyshit gross.

He did most of the cleaning and got a lot of stuff out, under Mike's auspices, because I was just too damned mad. I know that's stupid and immature in some ways, but I'd been on his ass for a month and he kept making it sound like I was just jerking him around. I finally said that if he didn't have it cleaned up by the time we held his birthday party, I'd send all the boys home by 11. With that fire lit under his butt, he did a pretty good job.

However, I think it's telling that when I went in to organize things today, that I still hauled out over two big bags of trash out. We also found a half-eaten balance bar under his computer desk. I had to take the vacuum around the edges of his room to get all the food and crumbs up. We gave him a computer desk as well as a work desk. We placed the printer paper under his printer and we put his printer some place he cannot easily drop stuff into his printer to mess it up.

We made placards to stick into the handles of his dresser that label what is in each drawer. I still have to make placards for the boxes we put on his shelves to hold various items -- one box holds the magic the gathering cards, one box holds pokemon cards, another holds yu-gi-oh cards, and others hold bey blades stuff, and assorted crap that he didn't want to part with, but that kind of ends up in a nameless pile. I may further organize that tomorrow for him. I'll see how inspired I get. I'd really like to sew and I'd really like to bake and can a little.

At this point, I can actually identify what is under his bed and I removed all the food crumbs and wrappers.

I decorated for him. I put up the Bobafet mask and the Bobafet ray gun. I put up his Chinese hats and coins. I put up his rocks on a placard. I put up pictures of him and his best friend. I put up a picture of the much-mourned Cowboy kitty and one of the still kicking Kitty Girl because he said he wanted to keep it and because he wanted to be able to look at it.

It's hard being so connected to this child sometimes. Today, was not one of those times.

I could feel him floating every time he came into his room. At one point, he came in to work on his computer versus ours, while I was in there sorting things, and there was a pile of stuff in the room. I could tell, he felt overwhelmed by it. Then as he came in later, I could feel him, just glancing around like he couldn't believe it was his. When I moved his TV, so he could see it from bed, he was so happy.

When I stripped his bed, made his bed with clean sheets, and turned down his bed, and showed him it, he said,"Wow, how warm and cozy!"

I asked him, "How does it feel when you come in here now?" He said,"It's so amazing. I feel like I can concentrate and get stuff done."

I smiled and said,"What do you think will happen, if you let it go?" He said,"I will be grounded until I'm 18?"

I said,"More like til you're dead."