CLEANING TOILETS

The other day, I realized that in order to preserve some sanity, Romeo needed to get outside and burn off some energy.  It had snowed and there was shoveling that needed to be done so I told him that he would need to go outside.   He asked if Rodrigo also had to shovel and protested a bit when I said that his little brother would stay inside with me.  To make it sound better, I told him that Rodrigo would also be helping with a special job.  (I was just making this up and had no idea what special job I would assign.)  The first thing I could think of was...cleaning toilets.  I had no intention of making the poor tot clean toilets, but I thought the boys would think this was funny so I told them that Rodrigo's job was to clean the toilets.  Romeo let out a big GROAN and suddenly realized that shoveling snow was not such a bad idea.  Rodrigo, on the other hand, shouted out a great big..."YES!!!!!!!!!"  He was truly happy about this assignment and made a beeline to his bathroom where all the supplies were waiting for him.  

Rodrigo and I cleaned all of the toilets together.  At one point when he wasn' t looking, I took the brush to do a little cleaning of my own.  He turn around and said, "MOM, that is MY JOB!"  I quickly handed over the brush and let him do his magic.  No kidding! Rodrigo really likes to clean toilets!  I wrote down some of what he said that day...   "We clean Stephanie's toilet now?...Stephanie's toilet is very dirty...I love to clean toilets, Mom!"

Rodrigo will often tell me that something is dirty.  He likes things to be tidy.  Today he was digging in my silverware drawer and informed me that..."This is dirty, Mom".   He then proceeded to pull everything out, wash it, and reorganize my drawer.   He walked by his waste basket the other day and asked if I would empty it because he thought it was too full!  It is a little embarrassing to me that my 6 year old son feels the need to clean up after me, but hey, I think that I am going to just go with it!  I wonder what this could mean??!!   Maybe he'll own a cleaning service...or be a mail sorter...or a rocket scientist!!!  I think he will be meticulous no matter what path he chooses.  Really. It doesn't matter to me as long as he comes back occasionally to help me clean my toilets.