Organization

Hey look, there's a title. Good thing to go with the theme.

So, with my sinus happiness of the last few days, I woke up silly early this AM, like 2:30 AM. Got the dishwasher emptied, run, and emptied again, a load of laundry done, and watched Dances With Wolves before anyone else got up. Overall a successful morning.

Funny thing with the dishes. We have a utensils drawer next to the stove. Into this goes tongs, wooden spoons, the potato masher, spatulas, etc. This drawer tends to remain pretty full and needing to be organized so it tends to attractt attention to make sure it opens and closes correctly. I opened it to find a half eaten, only slightly brown apple. Most likely #2 son's work, as he has gotten good and randomly leaving his partially eaten apples all over the house, and he eats less of them than #1 son, thus allowing me to use my Sherlock-like deduction skills to arrive at my logical conclusion.

Now, funny story aside, organization is something I lack, always have. My wife is the organized one. In fact, part of the reason we get anywhere with the boys starts with her organization rubbing off on me. I'm not a mess, I just think in piles rather than folders, which to many, looks like a mess.

However, organization is key to my days with the boys. Organization includes structure, and we loosely maintain that at this point. A lot of this centers around naptimes, which are amazing. For those of you who have children who no longer nap, I don't know how you do it. It also helps that they know how to pick up, because my boys are professionals at making messes. I have been assured that this is normal, and girls do it as well, but the thoroughness of my children fascinates me. They can take stuff from one room and mess up five rooms, all in 20 minutes (or less). One word comes to mind: miraculous (in the messiest way possible). Of course, I know where they get it from. I have watched our kitchen go from spotless to a U of Pain and Suffering (we have a peninsula style kitchen where it makes a U with the sink opposite the stove). Organization means you having your stuff together for when they do not. It means, for me, trying to get up at 5:30, and going to bed at 10 so I can do that. Planning, preparation, all that stuff that everyone talks about for work, it all applies to the SAHP. Granted, you can do it in your pajamas, but I find that I need to get dressed so that it helps the boys shift gears.

All that mess just allows me to teach to learn. I may not get them to the point where planning and preparation regularly runs their lives, but knowing where things go and putting them away regularly means my kids will hopefully learn that particular life skill (don't ask my mom about this, she may or may not agree that I personally possess it). Their occasional creativeness with storing fruit just showcases that they might just understand. Now the question comes, will they remember when they hit puberty?