Malone is waiting for the tidy to come in

Teaching the five year old to read is seemingly easier than teaching her to tidy her room. When does the tidy thing kick in? Is it taught or genetic? There can’t be a tidy gene, can there? I imagine cavemen would’ve kept their caves tidy of sticks and bracken in case insects and animals made homes in them…so have we evolved to tidy? Is being tidy important enough to our evolution?

Would anyone ever put anything back in its place unless someone told us to…repeatedly? I do. Because if I don’t it bugs me. I can’t find my hairbrush unless it’s put back in its place in the bathroom. I can’t find my glasses unless they’re left by my bedside. Though if ever lost they are sure enough always on the side of the bath. For me, being tidy is part of having a nice day. My home looks visually pleasing to my eye (no piles of mess strewn everywhere) and, most importantly, everything can be found.

“Her hair would turn into a nest of orange peel, from lost hairbrushes and a love of fresh fruit”

Johnny Depp once said kids are like hanging out with a drunk. “You have to hold onto them. They bump into things. They laugh, they cry, vomit and urinate.’’ Well sometimes they are like mini professors, geniuses discovering anti matter, because indeed they are discovering something for the first time. If you’ve never clipped a paper clip into a paperclip chain before, or realised that red and blue make purple then that’s a eureka moment where you certainly are not going to be considering if all the pens have their lids on, or where that lost mosh monster is that Mummy is going to tread on later with bare feet….

When did I learn that if I wasn’t tidy it bugged me? When my mum stopped looking for my lost stuff and I had to spend ages looking for a pen that worked? If I want my child to enjoy being tidy do I have to stop tidying up after her and let her see what happens? I can’t do that! I’d stub my toe on baby Annabel and trip over a mosh monster and her hair would turn into a nest of orange peel from lost hairbrushes and a love of fresh fruit.

Hmm, perhaps a lesson for later on in life…perhaps at age five I just need to carry on tidying up after her, lead by example and expect that small children will make messes. I guess all I can do is show her that everything has a place and that I put stuff back after I use it. I will try not to get annoyed at the lounge being turned into a theme park island (our blue blanket covering the whole floor as it’s the ‘sea’, of course); after all, she is five, absorbed into a moment of creation where she is so focused that hanging one’s coat up really is an absurd idea. Time for a sticker reward chart…

Illustration: Jake McDonald www.shakeyillustrations.blogspot.com