Trouble, again

Last night as I went into Arabella's room for story time, I noticed that although the floor was clean there was a lot of stuff under the bed. I too have serious stuff-it-under-the-bed issues, it's amazing that as a kid my bed didn't actually levitate from all the crap stuffed under it. But as a parent we of course want to prevent our children from sharing our fate, and I noticed it wasn't just shoes and toys, but clothes, and I get frustrated when Arabella claims as dirty things I know she never wore, she just left on the floor until they were indeed dirty.

so I began to disembowel the under-bed region, to sort dirty from unworn. As I went I began to notice some forbidden items hidden under there -- pens, crayons (which are supposed to stay downstairs), my old hippie schmata that I have been letting Arabella wear as a cape. Then I began finding more incriminating stuff, bedouin jewelry, gold jewelry, the huge cut crystals that belong on a very expensive lamp (I traded a sculpture for it) that she knocked off when she was in her crawling-climbing phase and I have never gotten around to mending, hair sticks, a moon-shaped tin with horses on it, a handful of tiny purple seed beads, and two Polish wood nesting dolls, one which is the story of Cinderella told on dolls, one is a story set which I got on my first trip to Poland almost 20 years ago. I don't let the girls play with either set, as a set of cat nesting dolls that my Dad gave Arabella when she was about 1 was completely broken before she turned 2. I have figured that I would give the dolls to her when she was old enough to care for them, like maybe 10. Or 30. The Cinderella doll was still closed, its too tight-fitting for Arabella to open, but the story doll had been opened. We found all the parts -- Papa with his turnip, mama in her apron, daughter, dog, mouse -- all except the cat, the next to smallest doll.

As tempting as it was, I didn't scream, I didn't spank her, but I have confined her to her room (excepting meals) until the cat is found. No playtime outside, no tv, no stories, no playgroups, not so much as a shopping trip. I spent about a half hour last night hunting through all her bins of toys and oddments, but the cat did not appear. Later today I will be heading upstairs to go through and severely organize her toys, label all the bins (again. I labelled them all last summer, but she removed all the labels), and put everything away. I may move the furniture into a more convenient (for me) arrangement. And then I will be cleaning my room, which has been allowed to get completely out of hand since Sabine came along.

I think that this comes from a desire for attention, though it is not within my emotional or physical power to give Arabella all the attention she diesires. This ransaking of my room was done during Quiet Time, the time of the afternoon which used to be nap-time, but when she stopped napping last year I had to find some form of down time for myself as well as for Arabella. The idea is she is supposed to play (quietly) in her room for one to two hours between the end of lunch (and crafts or coloring time) and when Michael comes home. We have Quiet Time nearly every day, unless she is at a friends house or we are engaged in an afternoon activity. Even while the grandparents were here last week she still had Quiet Time. But when they left I guess I wasn't enough entertainment for her the rest of the time and she had to find new outlets for her energy.

To me the biggest transgression here is taking things from my room without permission. The cat is just a symbol. It is something that I have for my own sentimentality as well as the idea that I would someday share those experiences and stories with my daughters. I doubt that I was any better as a child, I remember having an endless fascination for my parents letter opener (it was modeled like a real sword, complete with leather sheath!), and I remember with great shame things that I broke that were not mine ...

If anyone has any better suggestions on how to deal with this sort of thing, I would love to hear it.

Update: After cleaning and organizing Arabella's toys this morning (mostly. I still have more to do), I found more stolen goods, including a book I didn't recognize with a resale shop tag on it. I asked where it came from, and Arabella admitted she had stolen it. This is much worse than I realized. The current punishment has been extended, and I have pointed out that the State Fair, which Arabella has looked forward since last years fair, opens next week and she will not be going unless the cat is found.