Now, I know I should be grateful that I have fortune enough to have a room just dedicated to the children's toys and I am.

I love having a playroom, but this room is also a curse.

Since it is upstairs and  away from my view, I don't have to look at the mess every day.

However, when I do make the trip up the stairs, I often have the wind knocked out of me from the site of the disaster.

I cannot even begin to tell you of the messes I have found in this room. I have found half eaten tootsie rolls stuck to the wall — yuck. Chewed gum in the pretend refrigerator.

And it almost always looks like Toy-r-us has thrown up in the playroom

I have gone in there countless times and cleaned it up and out. I have labeled bins and boxes to make clean up for the kids as easy as possible.

Somehow, though, putting away what you are finished with is just too hard!

Well, I had reached my limit one day and I went up there and dumped out every bin, box and toy container we had and said, "We are cleaning and organizing this room. And whatever is not put away properly is headed to the trash."

The groans and whines that came from my children sounded as though I had asked them to scrub a dirty toilet.

So we began.

We cleaned and put away toys. Dusted and wiped off crusty surfaces. It was disgusting.

It was so bad in fact that at one point I looked over at my oldest child, Dylan and said, " You do realize that if you all just put away what you all took out, we would never have to do this, right?"

Now, I must say I should have known better than to say that to him. He is all business. And always has an answer or a solution he thinks is better.

He looked at me and said "Well, Autumn and I do not agree with that idea, and we don't want to do it."

Um, excuse me?

I though to myself,  do you think this family is a democracy? I am so sorry if I gave you that impression.

Because it is not.

It was as if he was the spokesperson for their kingdom Dylan-Autumnville. Where Autumn was the queen and she appointed Dylan to tell me they were not signing this clean up treaty.

I might need to send in the troops, and by troops I mean Eric.

The play room is now clean, at least for today.

Oh, and they’re signing a treaty all right. Just call me Napoleon.