If there were any justice in the world, at least one member of this family would be a neat freak.

I spent a good portion of this afternoon helping Lydia clean out her old room and move her stuff into her new room. In addition to her furniture, books, and toys, we took out six (SIX!) plastic grocery bags full of trash. How can one little kid generate such a vast amount of garbage?

Right now her new room is as tidy as any mother could hope for. Her clothes are all in their rightful place in the dresser she recently inherited from her brother. Her toys are organized on her shelves and in her toybox. The fold-up bed she uses for sleepovers is stowed neatly under her well-made bed, and her books and videotapes stand at attention along the windowsill. I want to say that from this moment onward there will be a strictly-enforced “clean room” policy, but I’ve made such declarations in the past only to end up clearing out six bags of trash from one modestly-sized bedroom.

In the interest of fairness, I must admit that Olof’s and my bedroom is no better. Were I to clean it any time soon, I expect that I could quite easily fill six or more grocery bags to take to the garbage can. Not only that, but I think I could kill at least a couple of days washing all the clothes we’ve got piled in there. How can two people, neither of whom could be called a clothes horse, generate such a vast amount of dirty laundry?

The bedrooms are easily the worst of the disorder (well, the bedrooms and Olof’s office, but I accept no responsibility where the cleaning of that room is concerned), but the rest of the house isn’t far behind when it comes to clutter and sticky floors and handprints on walls. None of it is dirty in the “call the health department, this place is a public hazard” kind of way, but it’s still embarrassingly untidy. Why, oh why can’t I be one of those people who loves to clean and straighten and scrub and polish and shine? Lord knows I have obsessions enough otherwise — if there were any justice in the world I’d be allowed to trade one of them in for a fixation that might actually prove useful.