Sand Castles and Waves

To my son Tommy,

I had a couple minutes this morning, so I straightened the living room.  Your Great Aunt Lulu is coming over to watch you today, so we wanted to make it appear that we are somewhat clean and organized.  A couple observations and questions came to mind.

First, and this is meant with no offense to my dutiful wife who is juggling nursing school and parenting and such, when any house cleanliness level depends on the husband, it is doomed.  This may be stereotypical, but the heterosexual male is the bane and arch enemy of cleanliness.  The only one who could possibly be worse than a daddy at cleaning, is a four year old son.  I try my hardest and I do a decent job I suppose but there must be something genetically encoded in my Y chromosome to resist all cleaning ability.  I need to give it more of an effort because your mother is putting long hours in on her nursing studies and that is where she should focus.

Secondly, cleaning with a four year old in the house is like making a sand castle too close to the ocean.  Sure you can fix it up and get it almost perfect, but a wave of destruction is always looming.  When the tide washes out all your progress you just have to start anew.  As I pick up the same thing over and over again, I notice my resolve and attention to detail is waning.  I used to make sure that animals went in the animals box and scooby doo characters went with the other scooby type objects and puzzle pieces made it to the right box or Ziploc with the other pieces.  Today, that didn't happen so much.  I got a bucket of co-mingled things that their only similarity is that they are your toys.  I have a box of loose puzzle pieces of various puzzles that I just didn't have time to sort.  The sad thing is, because I was a bit less organized in the cleaning process, the place will return to a messier state much faster.

Finally, I wonder if every parent of a four year old can find a never ending supply of stickers spread out through each room of their house.  I picked up twenty stickers that were just loose on the floor this morning.  I know I trashed at least three times that amount in the past week.  I half expect to look at the credit card bill and see you, at age four, have figured out how to make a standing order for the "sticker pack of the day" club.  You have a mystical supply of stickers and your father's eye for decorating, which means that anything that can be spruced up can be spruced up with a sticker that doesn't match in color or theme or any such matter.

Welp my cute little wave of destruction just woke up and is coming down the stairs.  You are wearing your Aunt Na's shirt which you came home in yesterday and insisted you sleep in and don't seem ready to give up yet.  Time for breakfast and to put on the finishing touches on my cleaning facade.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo