Making Dinner

Katherine has become quite a collector and everything eventually winds up in that basket up there. Take a close look, you'll hair bands, barrettes, Little People, slices of play pizza, various pizza toppings, cupcakes, buttons, tools and a few more things I've forgotten about. She put that together while playing in her kitchen and she refers to it as "dinner". I'm guessing it's a casserole of some sort. During the past week more got added to the pot.

If there's one task I am sick of doing around here it's sorting. What a thankless job because as fast as I organize it, it winds right back in the dinner basket. As I type this in a nice clean, TV room, I can hear her in her room taking stuff out of her closest. She's supposed to be in bed. Excuse me one second...

Ok, where was I? Right. Some of you might say not to bother, if she likes to put all her eggs in one basket, go with it. But being a stickler for organization (ok, ok, anal retentive), I just can't do it. That mess bothers me. Plus I feel like she needs to learn that every once in a while we've got to clean up. The past couple of times I attempted to sort that basket I was literally kicked out of her kitchen ("Mommy, don't touch my stuff! Get out!"), so I had to resort to stealth sorting. Tonight, however, she was a bit more complacent about it, not thrilled mind you, but willing to at least go with the flow and participate a little bit.

I have this weird feeling that I was the same way at her age.