Housekeeping Edition

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 Of the five of my grandchildren, Messiah is by far the busiest.  He has to be in motion, at least with his hands, most of the time.  He loves to build things, he loves to run and jump and is unaccustomed to the concept of sitting still, unless he is engaged in an activity that takes his full concentration.  He rolled over in the hospital at 24 hours old, he walked at 9 months, and if you turn your back on him outside, he's up a tree or on top of a fence.  When walking to the bus in the morning, he runs down the sidewalk way ahead of me, with me screaming, every single day, "WATCH THE DRIVEWAYS!!!!"  One thing I've learned in the years we've lived here is that most people are extremely mindful when backing out onto the street, but my heart is in my throat the entire time.

He has a specific thing (many of them, actually) that drives him nuts. He cannot STAND to have someone clean up a project before he feels he's done with it, so if he starts building something on Friday morning before the bus, he wants it left just as it is all weekend, regardless of our weekend plans.  As it happens, we have not had people over at all since the beginning of the pandemic.  Just after we and all our friends were vaccinated and we started socializing again, our dishwasher broke, cracking and flooding our kitchen floor, and the house has remained torn up for about 2 months now.  (The end is in sight.)  But I cannot stand what I call "visual chaos."  Having toys out in the middle of the floor all weekend makes me insane.  

The other night, when he and Julian spent the night, Messiah got very upset when I made him deconstruct his parking garage to put the toys away.  Yesterday morning, he started the project over, and I made him clean up before the bus.  He left the house all frowny, and barely managed to eek out a kiss at the bus stop.

This morning, he dragged the toys out again and started in anew.  When it was time to get ready to walk out for the bus, I said, "Messiah----" and was immediately interrupted.

"Gaga.  Please don't put away the tiles.  Please don't tell me to clean up.  Please don't touch my stuff.  Or mess it up.  Or move it.  Or clean it.  Or even touch it.  Because if you do, I won't like it.  And I'll get mad.  And then you'll get mad.  And then Julian will yell at me to quit being a baby.  And I'm not one. Because I'm six.  SO please just leave my stuff alone."

How could I argue?



Comments

  1. M. RyJuly 23, 2021 at 9:21 AM

    I’m proud of him for expressing his feelings! Maybe you can have him place them in the back corner, by the piano, as a compromise. That way it will be out of the more heavily traveled areas and everyone can be happy! -Auntie

    ReplyDelete

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