My children leave droppings

My children leave droppings
3 July 2014

Like most wild life and species of animals, my kids leave droppings.  Perhaps as a sign of marking their territory?

Personally I’m wondering if random spraying wouldn’t just be better?  Maybe less messy to clean.  And not so all over the show either.

I find the physical evidence of their presence all over my home.  A ball.  A pair of dental retainers?  DVD’s.  Lip ice.  Mugs.  Shoes.  Hair elastics and clips.  Actually all manner of sports paraphernalia.  Ear phones.  Marbles.  Superheroes.  Little bags.  School bags.  Wet towels.  Lunch boxes.  Brushes.  Used ear buds?  Dirty clothes – mostly socks (do they have a factory?).  Sweaters.  Beanies.  Caps.  Summertime slops.  Sweet papers (grrr!).  Fruit peels.  Comics.  Books.  Yes, indeed.  Their droppings do indeed shape shift, and take on the form of numerous arbitrary objects.

For the most part their droppings have no distinctive stench.  Unlike most animal droppings.  But perhaps it depends mostly on the manner of their droppings.  Discarded sandwiches, two weeks old, shoved under a desk, happily growing mould like an incredible biology experiment, can work up quite a whiff.  As too can decomposing fruit in the bottom of school bags and sports bags.  So “special” to find these little gifts.  Mostly on the first morning back at school, after a three week long holiday.  At home.  When they had ample time and even instruction to empty their bags of their loot on the last day of school.

Socks deserve a paragraph all on their own.  A mere subsection wouldn’t do them justice.  White socks are a joke.  Yet schools insist on them.  Can’t we just get random arb dirty grey or beige?  Would be so much easier.  And less costly than the chemicals I have to use, in an attempt to bleach the grey dreary things back into white submission again.  More effective too.  Then there’s the pong.  What can be said about that?  Sport socks have a unique aroma all of their own.  Most especially of the hockey sock variety, as there is a true blending of the senses between the actual foot area and the sweaty shin pad area.  A marvellous olfactory combination that is truly distinctive.  Pervasive too.  And to step things up a little bit, simply add a bit of moisture in any form.  Either rain, damp, or squelchy, muddy, grass field patches.  Cause with those you get the added benefit of soil added in.  Gives both texture and bouquet!  Scintillating.  Finding these little sock “treasures” behind couches and beds, in school bags and sports bags is a real “treat”.  And one of the most common form of droppings.

In general sporting equipment also deserves special mention.  And my kids subscribe to the full range.  There’s hockey sticks, and tennis rackets, cricket bats, and all types and sizes of balls.  In general these droppings can be found on any part of the property.  They are not merely reserved for the house.  Instead they can be found in the garden, the driveway.  The bathrooms too.  Nothing is sacred.  This is the rule of thumb.  And actually bathrooms are logically the perfect place to leave droppings.  But finding batman in the bath can be rather alarming.  As well as a whole platoon of plastic soldiers too.  And not to even mention the dinosaur dilemma I’m faced with at times.

Wheely equipment also features largely.  The wheelie items, like skateboards, penny boards and jay boards, have the added element of potential maiming when you step on them.  Broken bones too.  Such fun!

And then there’s crafting.  My daughter in particular, is overly fond of leaving glittery droppings.  Sparkling long after the removal of the offensive objects.  Weeks later in fact.  It’s the gift that keeps on giving.  Empty glue sticks are popular too.  Craft paper cut-outs.  Little bits of paper.  Girlie magazines.  Pens and pencils, khoki’s too.  Khoki lids are very prominent.  And let’s not forget that old chestnut.  Pencil sharpener shavings.  Broken bits of rubbers too.

Not even my study is sacred.  Their droppings are even rive in my shrine.  My computer area.  Doodles and scribbles on gazillions of little pieces of paper.  Mostly computer game cheats.  Or random codes.  Notes about favourite game websites.  A list of episodes they’ve watched from some kiddies show on YouTube.  Extremely rarely there are little notes about school work.  Physics and chemistry equations.  But these droppings do invade my office bubble at times.  And then there’s the lists and lists and lists of soccer scores.  And player details.  Which somehow changes continually.  Yet they never quite manage to chuck out the old lists either.

Their droppings somehow take on an odd form on occasion.  Rather than leave things in their wake, they can make them disappear too.  Like my cell phone charger.  The TV remote.  The calculator that is gone.  And the staplers that keep on disappearing too.  The one and only Cole insists on turning the computer mouse pad upside down each and every time he sits down at my desk.  With the wrist bubble at the top.  It’s rather odd. 

I could keep on adding and adding and adding.  There is an unending supply.

But every so often, I get a little dropping that makes my heart melt. 

A grubby sticky note, complete with dirty finger marks,

“You are the best Mommy in the whole world.  You are so beautiful and you make the best food ever”.

Which in turn leads to me leaving them droppings too,

“You are the best little boy in the whole world.  You are so special and I love you so much!”

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