I have decided to rearrange Nathan's bedroom. Of course he is an 11 year old boy, so it is not the cleanest place on earth (but it is not the worst either). Surprisingly enough, for an 11 year old boy, he actually keeps up on it. I am sure a lot of that has to do with the incentive I gave him last winter. It seemed as if I could NEVER get him to clean his room. It was like a bomb was dropped in his room on a weekly basis. It was quite irritating. I understand that he is a boy and these things are just not the most important things to him, but come on...his room was really bad. So, I bribed him, lol!

I have never allowed him to have a TV in his room and although he owns both a nintendo gamecube and a PS2 he has no way to play those in his room. There are a couple of reasons I have done this. For the longest time I did not feel comfortable allowing him to have the games and a TV in his room because I did not feel he was responsible enough to set limitations with these things. I wanted him to prove to me he could do this. Also, there are so many things on TV that I just don't approve of him watching. So, I made him a deal. If he could do good in school and keep his room (relatively) clean than I would create a gaming area for him in his room at the end of the school year. Well, that time has come. School is just about out...and this is the perfect time to do it, because my parents are moving house and my dad is thinking of giving Nate their old TV out of their bedroom (boy, did I luck out...I might not even have to buy him a TV, lol).

That leads me to a question....do you suppose that sometimes our kids get away with things because of our guilt over them having to put up with our illness? Sometimes I think so. Not always though, and this is not one of those instances, I just figured I would throw that in! Nate deffinately has had a difficult year and he has worked very hard. He came to a new area, a new school, started from scratch and worked his butt off to catch up in a school system that was more advanced than the one he was previously in. He has started counseling and that is not easy! And, through all of his difficult times (and yes, we have had some arguments too!) he has been a sport about helping me out. Plus he has proven to be responsible in his chores, etc. He worries and is scared of what will happen with this illness. It is just as unknown for him as it is me. On many levels I think worse because he does not have the maturity to sort out his emotions yet.

Anyway, so tonight he is cleaning up his room so that we can get started. Over the next couple of days we will be rearraning things. First thing will be to move his desk. He does not use it as he does his homework at the dining room table. I think this is where I will set up the TV and gaming area! Then we are going to take apart his bunk beds. He has decided that he is too old for bunk beds, lol (he is at that age where he thinks he is already a teenager, only he isn't yet). He wants to keep both beds though, so I will have to do some tricky arranging of things to make it look "cool" as he puts it. He wants the one bed to be used as a bed (of course) and the other to function more like a couch. We will have to see if I can make that work! With the design of these bunk beds it should be pretty easy to do though. Wish me luck!