House Fairy Update

So Sunday morning my kids saw the introduction letter from the House Fairy. They seemed excited about the prospect of her visiting--but they didn't clean their rooms. Maybe the rooms even got worse, but I'm not sure that was possible.

Thursday, the House Fairy made another visit, but all we got was fairy dust--all over the house. In case you're wondering, she leaves a little piece of cardstock with her signature on it, and part of her signature has glitter glue--that way she can leave the fairy dust, without a new mess to clean. Anyway, the fairy dust was in the kids' bathroom, both kids' bedrooms, and on top of a pile of stuff in the family room. We could have dusted the whole house.

Last night I was gone, and I left instructions for the kids to spend JUST 15 minutes cleaning their rooms. I didn't care if they were ALL CLEAN, but I wanted 15 minutes of hard labor. With my kids, labor in small doses is much easier to accomplish. When I got home, I found Hannah's room pretty GOOD. Her bookcase was needing a little bit of help. Toph's room, however, looks pretty bad. It looked "okay" from the door, but after walking inside, I could see that he had a LOT more to do.

I guess the House Fairy agreed with me, because she left a little bit of fairy dust and a set of stamps in Hannah's room--on the bookcase, so Hannah would know where to work. In Toph's room, she left some fairy dust and ONE Pokemon card. He was THRILLED to have a Pokemon card--wonder what she'd have left if his room was CLEAN? I think I'll request that the House Fairy leave a SMALL, sweet treat as a "good start" kind of communication.

All in all, I'd say it has been pretty successful. The kids are getting excited about House Fairy visits, and I'm hopeful that it will help them be more motivated to be MORE conscious of their surroundings and leave LESS mess. Time will tell!