A Matter of Perspective

This is a picture of Megan's room. This display constitutes "cleaning up." Now, to my way of thinking, this is actually a mess, but not to Megan. It's really a matter of perspective.

You see, I have given all the children, Megan included, bins. I love bins. They can be labeled and stowed away and all the mess is out of sight and out of mind. They have bins for toys and papers, bins for books and crayons. These bins are, once filled with various and diverse junk that was previously spread all around the room, meant to be slid under the bed in a neat row, labeled side out.

The boys pretty much follow this pattern, although once a week I have to make them pull the bins out from under the bed so that they can clean up the stuff that has mysteriously found itself behind the bins, safely hidden from view. Still, it's "out of sight and out of mind," so I'm happy.

Megan, on the other hand, likes all of her treasures displayed. This doesn't just apply to conventional treasures like, say, a jewelry box, but also to those things that only Megan defines as treasures: Toilet paper roll crafts from Sunday school, every picture she has ever colored, shoes, hairbows, stuffed cats, books, and scraps of material. These treasures she carefully arranges as if she's setting up a display in a store window.

It's not really a matter of laziness, because it takes her longer to arrange her displays than it would for her to toss her stuff in the bins. It is, instead, truly a matter of one's perspective. In Megan's world, things only have value if you can see them. In my world, things you can see constitute clutter. Chances are, that this appreciation for the visual side of "things" comes from Megan's artistic bent. It may also be attributed to her more patient nature. And these things are very good and defining parts of her personality. So for now, Mommy will just say, "How nice, Megan" and just try to keep her from drowning in paper.