Mr. Tidy

T is my little "Mr. Tidy." Now, I'm not saying that he never makes a mess or ignores me when I ask for toys to be picked up. Lord, no! But in the "Odd Couple" that is Oo and T, T is the Felix to Oo's Oscar.

Oo leaves a trail of toys behind her as she walks. If she knocks something off a shelf, she leaves it on the floor where it fell. If you ask her to come to the table to eat, she flings whatever happens to be in her hand across the room to fall where it may before she'll come sit down. She prefers to have books in stacks on the floor rather than on the bookshelf, because that way she can keep the ones she has read separate from the ones she needs to read next.

T, however, wears a big toothy smile when he hangs up his coat and stuffs his hat into the sleeve (he'll also hang up Oo's coat if she forgets too). He practically giggles when he tosses his empty sippy cup into the sink. And as soon as he notices a couch pillow on the floor, he puts it back on the couch automatically.

Today, I came into the family room and saw T stuffing balls between the wall and the back of the couch. It's a tight squeeze back there, so not many of the kids' balls would fit, but he was trying his best. I asked:

Me: "T" what are you doing?

Oo (who always answers for T): He's shoving balls behind the couch.

Me: I see that Oo (I also see that T has begun shoving Oo's My Little Ponies behind the couch), but I asked T. T, why are you shoving things behind the couch?

T: Momma do not like a big mess.

I appreciated the attempt at cleaning up, but I did not enjoy having to move the couch to fish out ponies with dusty manes. Yuck! Didn't I just move all this furniture to vacuum behind and under it? Oh, wait... that was last summer. Yuck!