Conversations of a Different Nature and How to Put Toys Away

Luke and I usually have a conversation that follows this pattern at least once a day, if not multiple times a day.

"Can I watch a show today?"

"No, you can't watch a show today."

"Mom, you're STUPID!  You're so STUPID, Mom!"

................................

Luke is on a mess-making kick.  Even more than normal.  And he's an equal-opportunity mess-maker.  In the last week he's created messes, seemingly for the fun of it, of (clean) diapers, tiny dried leaves that he brought into the house, Feta cheese, clean kitchen items, clean laundry, toys, shoes, and more.  I suppose I should be glad that he feels comfortable enough in his environment to explore and satisfy his curiosity, but there's this one little hang-up.  Luke has an aversion to cleaning up after himself.

The other evening, I'd told Luke repeatedly to put his toys away.  This was at the end of a day when I'd helped him clean up multiple messes throughout the day (which pretty much means I'd been cleaning up after him all day long), and I just didn't have it in me to clean up any more.  He had dumped out all of the millions of cars/trucks/trains in the family room and had no interest in putting them in their designated receptacles.

Finally, after trying many ways to get him to clean up the toys, I told him that I was going to take away whatever toys he didn't clean up after a short period of time.  He made no effort to clean up in the allotted time, so I stuffed two grocery bags full of cars/trucks/trains.  He was sad, but not nearly as upset as I'd hoped he'd be.

The next evening, he didn't feel like cleaning up the few cars/trucks/trains that were still available for play in the family room, so he told me to take them.  "Mom, can you take these toys?"

(Side Note: Luke also used this tactic when I was helping him clean up the tiny dried leaves he dropped on the floor of the living room.  "Mom, just take the leaves away."  Backfire.)

Let it be known.  I have declared war on our sizable collection of All Wheeled Toys.  If we have too many for the kids to clean up, we have too many.  And the kids haven't missed them since they've been hidden away.  Anybody want some??

Somehow during this period of time, Luke decided that there was a place that would be perfect for stashing things.  It had some spare room, so it must have been under-utilized.  It also offered secure storage in a climate-controlled environment.  Hence, we have found a variety of cars and markers in the refrigerator.  Of course, when he pulled random refrigerated grocery items out of the fridge, it took some coaxing to get him to put them back in.  But he had no problem placing Things Which Require No Refrigeration in the refrigerator.  What, I wonder, is going through his head?