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Maybe if his hand was over a Batman coloring book instead?

I am so exhausted. I spent four and a half hours cleanin

g the boy’s bedroom today.  Way back in November I did this with Sassy’s room.  I had been frustrated by The Bandit’s bedroom for a really long time and today was the end of my rope. 

You know those really disturbing shows like Hoarding: Buried Alive where people are so averse to throwing anything away – even garbage – that they live with crap stacked literally to the ceiling and skinny little paths through their houses. Well, obviously, the Bandit’s room wasn’t that bad – it just felt that way with all the McDonald’s happy meal toys and action figures with missing arms and Lego’s and Matchbox cars and broken squirt guns and various other forms of flotsam and jetsam inherent in a boy’s room.

He had so many baby and little boy toys there was no room left to put anything away.  Anytime I asked him to sort through and donate those toy’s he’d grown out of, just as you’d suspect, he’d suddenly claim that each and every toy I’d suggest was his absolute favorite toy of all time.

I snuck five garbage bags of puzzle pieces, happy meal toys, games with missing parts, loose marbles, decks of cards with only twenty-six cards, and torn stuffed animals. I tossed out the dominos and the checkers because so many were missing. There was a free-for-all expunging of debris in his room.  I even made him slither under his bed and fish out the orange peels, various fruit gummies, wrappers, and one random peach pit. I don’t know why that garbage was under there, but I shouldn’t be surprised because his father and I find his food remains everywhere.

Now every Lego has a home, every Bakugan and Pokemon have a box, all the train and race tracks are in their place.  It’s nice.

So it was only that much more unfortunate when I had to kill him.

I told him to put his toys away and get ready for bed. I didn’t expect anything to happen when I went back in there to give him a kiss and a cuddle.  Sadly, that wasn’t the case. I found the toys he was last playing with shoved under his previously pristine bed. They weren’t even shoved well or I wouldn’t have seen them.  The boy’s too lazy to even be a decent slob.

After his beating and he put those toys in their prescribed places, I made him take an oath. He had to put his right hand over his heart and raise his left hand in the boy scout sign.

I, The Bandit, to hereby solemnly swear

“What does ‘solemnly’ mean?”

“It means you’re not kidding and that you understand this is very serious business.”

To always put my toys away where they belong.

“No giggling, Bandit.”

“OK”

I understand that every toy has a home.

“Mo-om, the toys don’t have homes.  That’s silly. They have cubbies.”

“The cubbies are they’re homes.”

I promise to put away every toy before I take out another one.

“I don’t think I can say that part.”

“You’d better.”

And I promise to never to go sleep without putting  away every single toy.

“EVERY TOY?”

“Yes.  Say it.”

The oath was said. I will admit I delivered it in the dark so I don’t know if he had his little hand over his heart the whole time.  I don’t even know if he took it seriously.

Well, it was beautiful while it lasted.

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