Hannah's Thing-osis

I've been involved in a lot of debates the last few days about socialism, abortion, the election (there, I snuck that word in again, hah, hah!). I'm all issued out and will leave those posts to others (for a while anyway - at least until my juices start flowing again) and just write about my kids - my most favoritist (a Darlaism) subject of all.

Yesterday Hannah took it upon herself to clean out her top desk drawer. I had seen how much junk was crammed in there the day before and commented that "it looked like I would have to get in there and clean it out". This is a serious threat to her, so she took it to heart and decided to do the job herself.

I don't understand why God can't give our children the best parts of both of us. Really. I mean, would it really hurt for a least two children to be perfect in this world? It would free up some of God's time while he was perfecting other people's kids, as well.

Instead, she inherited all of my neur-osis and all of her dad's thing-osis. Thing-osis translated means: Unable to throw things away. Packrat. Considered a much worse condition than neur-osis.

If you have ever been around my house for very long, you would understand why thing-osis is really a much more severe condition than neur-osis. Four washing machines and three dryers, three fridges and stoves (although he recently did get rid of one washer/dryer set - bless his heart!), a basement crammed with...things....so that one can just barely sneak into the laundry room, a garage full of things, a dining room full of tools (still from our renovations), the sewing machine set up so that my dear husband can sew all of his socks (because he can't throw the blasted THINGS out!)......these are just a few examples. Seriously.

And my dear Hannah has been blessed with this genetic condition.

Now, as she was cleaning out her drawer, she somberly informed me that she would "throw some things out". I told her that was very good (knowing how very difficult this was for her). I told her to put all the stuff for the garbage in a separate pile, and she agreed. After about fifteen minutes of working, she called me into her room and said,

"Mom, I'm pretty sure that if I'm careful, I can fit all of this stuff back into my drawer. It just has to be arranged differently to fit."

And so the separation anxiety begins.

"Hannah, have you even started any piles that you are going to throw out?" I asked her.

"Yes," she replies.

"Where?" I ask.

"Behind the door," she answers.

I look behind the door and see a tiny little pile and, quite frankly, find it very difficult not to burst out laughing. She was having trouble throwing THAT out?

I look at her seriously and say, "Hannah, I'm quite sure that you are going to find it much easier to throw out your LITTLE pile than to have ME go through your stuff and throw out a much BIGGER pile!"

Heartless mom that I am, I close the door just as she bursts into tears.

Her daddy (who is at that very moment on the sewing machine sewing up his STINKIN' HOLEY SOCKS), in a rare move of compassion, informs me that "he'll handle it".

He spends about fifteen minutes in her room. He comes out and I ask what is going on. He tells me not to worry about it. She will be getting rid of THAT pile. He then get's sarcastic.

"How would you like it if I got rid of your cards?" he asks.

The ONLY thing I save is birthday cards and such and letters from friends. THAT'S IT. I have one box full of stuff I've saved compared to a house, garage, basement full of STUFF from him, and he's complaining about my stuff?

"You're comparing my cards with pieces of paper with little squiggly lines on them?" I ask, because that comprised most of what was in the junk pile.

To make a long story short, she did manage to get rid of a little bit of her stuff. And became comrades with her dad for the afternoon while I was the big, bad, booger.

But I'm okay with that. As long as progress has been made. And it has.