I have an alarm set to indicate time to clean up the toy room each night so that the clutter doesn’t become too unwieldy and overtake the house. We don’t always have time for clean up to happen every night. It’s just one of those nonessential things that make me happy when the stars do align. A few days ago we had one of those star aligning nights and Sophia helped me put things away. “Not my house!” She said when I came close to her Lincoln log building.
“Ok, not your house. We can leave your house there.”
“I like my house.”
“I do too. You do a good job building them. We’ll leave it there.”
Last night Kurt took out the ancient tiny twenty inch TV from of the cabinet in the toy room to pass down the thirty-two inch TV that we recently replaced with a fifty-five incher while I helped Sophia get ready for bed. In the process of switching the TVs Kurt knocked over the Lincoln log house. Sophia came downstairs, “Daddy you broke my house!”
“I’m sorry. You can build another one in the morning. You’re good at building them.”
Sophia started sobbing. “But I like that one.”
“Ok we’ll fix it tonight.”
They fixed the house. Kurt gives her a hug goodnight and says, “I love you.”
“Then don’t break my house!”
Ouch. Even though they fixed it again, as she climbs the stairs she tells me, “Momma, Daddy broke my house.” Relentless.
Picture taken 9/7/2011 after Sophia's first day of preschool. She was scolding me for bringing out more than one ball for Lukas to play with.
