Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The “Closet” Behind the Bed

Ricki has an extra “closet” in her room: the space between her bed and the wall. Now she is not the only culprit. Most of my kids, at one time or another, thought that they could get away with discarding stuff behind the bed rather than getting up to throw it in the waste basket. Usually a few “clean-it-up-yourself” sessions would rectify 90% of the problem.
With Ricki, I have a difficulty, however. She discards books, tissues, pens, catsup bottles, etc. in such quantities as to make “clean-it-up-yourself” a bit unpractical. So usually I roll up my sleeves and corner Ricki at least to help me. Yesterday I decided that “enough was enough”, and I plan to do “after-the-bed” patrol much more frequently, and force her to do it herself.
* * * *

Ricki has a sense of humor. This morning she held a cold glass in her hand, and urged me to put it to my cheek, eager to see my reaction. This involves finding humor in a situation, foreseeing reactions, plan and effect. Not bad.

3 comments:

G6 said...

Oh, does this bring back memories.
The "behind the bed" garbage dump must be some universal rite of childhood.
Interesting how the things that frustrate us SO MUCH at the time (I'm talking about me, not you here... you seem to have an endless supply of patience...) evoke so much nostalgia later on :)

Anonymous said...

I have a friend whose daughter was told to CLEAN YOUR ROOM OR ELSE. A short time later her daughter called for the inspection and her room was immaculate - Mom was sooo impressed....

UNTIL, Mom went downstairs to the kitchen and looked out the back door to find the entire back yard littered with the bedroom stuff. The daughter had opened her window and tossed everything out!

Needless to say, the daughter did not enjoy the second cleaning job nearly as much.

Cindy B

rickismom said...

Anonymous:
How funny!!! I could imagine Ricki doing that--- except she would know she has to pick it up.....