Mr. Toy, meet Mr. Foot

There are days that I am in awe that in my tenure as a mother I have yet to break a limb in a freak toy accident. If by tenure you are referring to the last 19 months. We try attempt make a concerted effort enforce in a half assed manner the rule that toys remain in the child’s bedroom or the “yellow” room. Of course my child is 3 1/2 and he believes the entire house is his room. I vacuum the one rug in our house and check under the couch for random objects and frequently find snack cups, matchbox cars, a Steve, legos, you name it.

Or even better, the child has now taken to playing puppet theater. He didn’t do this when he had an actual cardboard puppet theater. Now he lines up the plethora of little person chairs we have strewn about our house and fills them with a hoard of Steves (he has 4), his choo-choo and the giant duck and they watch a little wooden box that is the puppet theater. Somehow a hockey stick is used, but I’m not sure as to the specific purpose of the hockey stick.

Either way, this child make a mess wherever he goes. I understand that it is typical 3 year old behaviour. Hell, I’m aware this is typical child behaviour. But what gets me is the constant tripping over items randomly laying in various places. Take this for example.

To get from our family room to my bedroom I had to walk around a pirate ship, miscellaneous puzzle pieces, a baby spoon, a metal bowl, 2 wooden cutting boards and a Steve.

I should institute Suzanne’s rule of “if my foot touches an object it becomes mine.” That would make sense, but for now I am attempting to give the child the opportunity to learn cleaning up after himself.

(See how positive I sound after being off my happy supplements for almost a week)

All of those above pictured items were later confiscated when I asked the boy to mind the rules and pick them up. To which I was greeted with a resounding NO.? I say, parenting a 3 year old is fun.