Saturday, December 24, 2011

clutter


I hate clutter.  Despise it actually.  Well, my own clutter that is.  (You can have all the clutter that you want and it won't bother me at all.)  Me?  I like clean surfaces and open spaces.  Mean mother that I am, I took the boys chess trophies off their dressers and put them in their closet- doesn't that sound awful?  But they have so stinkin' many (being the brilliant chess minds that they are) that just walking into their room about gave me a panic attack.  I mean, those first place trophies are monstrous!  Anyway, before I went to bed one night, I went into the boys' room to check on them.  As I turned to walk out I noticed that Cameron's dresser top was full of stuff .  I made a note to myself that the next morning I would have him clear it all off- find a place for the stuff or throw.it.away.   But then- I took a second look.  It was like the "clutter" was speaking to me.  I looked carefully.  Everything told me a little bit about the teenage boy that I love so much. His varsity letter from playing soccer this year, the Chess Life magazine he was studying, the Christmas ornament he got from Aunt Sandy when she was his Sunday School teacher with a picture in it of him when he was 2 years old, the Starbucks mug he got from his CC teacher the last day of the semester, the Snoopy piggy bank he's had forever,  A Tale of Two Cities that he had a dreadful time getting through (so we cheated a bit with cliff notes!),  the muddy buddies from a good friend of his, his well worn Bible that he uses for sword drills, his wallet, the chain links that he used as a sort of object lesson when he made a presentation in class (and got the best grade), his pocket knife that he got for his tenth birthday, and Leah's clip and elastics that she probably talked him into taking out of her hair when she was playing with him in his room.  Almost brought tears to my eyes.  Maybe I need to reconsider my position on clutter.  Maybe it's not so bad after all.

3 comments:

melanie said...

awww....i love this!!! and i love the "clutter" and loved reading about all of it~ xoxo

taffie said...

Thanks for sharing the wonderful 'clutter'; that's what life's memories are made of! Reminded me of Prov 4:14 "Where no oxen [are], the crib [is] clean: but much increase [is] by the strength of the ox." Not saying the kids are oxen, they're much too cute for that! :-)

Susanna said...

Precious! thanks for sharing this perspective!! And Micah is getting WAY too big too fast!! I'm glad our baby won't grow that quickly! :)