Tuesday SmackDown: We're Cleaning the 7-Year-Olds' Rooms (Heaven Help Us).

TO SEE THE FINAL TUESDAY SMACKDOWN CLEAN-UP, CLICK HERE.

So my friend Gretchen and I were commiserating the other day about how much alike our daughters Lila and Maggie are—they’re both super smart, super funny, super stubborn and bossy as all get-out—when we both discovered that our little giggle nuts are… hmm, a nice way to say this… SLOBS.

THE CULPRITS

No, seriously. Our girls are just gross on the highest levels. For sure, both Lila and Maggie’s rooms are so junky, Gretchen and I were actually considering stretching that yellow crime scene tape across their bedroom doors—you know, for the protection of children and small animals. Our girls drop toys/books/clothes/shoes/boxes/papers/art supplies/random small items wherever they were playing with them last, and no matter how much yelling/begging/threatening/bribing we do, neither of the girls practices the simple art of cleaning up behind herself. To be fair, both Gretchen and I think too few storage solutions + the fact that the girls are still too little to clean such a massive mess = recipe for this disaster:

EXHIBIT A (Lila's Mess)

EXHIBIT B (Maggie's Mess)

Note the freakish similarities. The horse stables. The guitars strewn about. The desktop mountains of clutter. The bald-headed babies.

It's all just so very wrong.

Wrong, we tell you.

But summer vacation is over and our girls, newly minted second graders, are back in school.

Gretchen and I are going in.

To support one another, Gretchen and I decided to throw ourselves into what we’ve dubbed The Tuesday Smackdown. That’s right: We’re putting on our hazmat suits, getting out our oversized, heavy-duty trash bags, our rubber gloves and our mops and buckets, and we’re going to… gasp!... clean our girls’ rooms. Alas, the 7-year-olds can’t handle the gig. And we moms can’t take it anymore. So clean, we must.

THE BRAVE ONES

Our strategy? We’re going to be downright ruthless. Whatever isn’t an absolute essential/beloved toy/nailed down is going into trash bags—one headed for The Salvation Army, the other headed straight to the curb (made all the more easy by the fact that our daughters will be sitting in a classroom today, completely oblivious to the gangsta cleaning that’s about to take place).

Oh, believe me: It’s. About. To. Go. Down.

Want to see the results? Check back here around 4 p.m. for an update and pictures of their pig pens-turned-sweet little girl rooms.

*Makes sign of the cross.*

Pray for us.