Mr. Clean

Eamon looks a lot like both Aaron and me, but even so, sometimes we’re tempted to wonder whether he wasn’t switched at birth. See, Aaron and I are not the neatest people in the world. We both tend to put stuff down with the full intention of putting it away sooner or later…and it’s always later—usually not until someone is about to come and visit. Seriously, I love it when people come over because it forces us to clean.

Eamon is…different. Eamon has a sense of order. His motto seriously might be “A place for everything and everything in its place.” Caps belong on sippy cups. Doors should be shut. Latches should be latched and keys hung up in their proper spots. If you don’t put something where it belongs, he will anxiously point to whatever is amiss and scream “Ahh!” over and over until you finally fix it.

That being said, sometimes his idea of where things go doesn’t always match where we think things belong. For instance, we are always missing our Tupperware tops. He believes they belong in cupboards, but not necessarily the cupboard where Aaron and I generally keep them. His sippy cups often go missing because he decides to put them in filing cabinets or cupboards for safe keeping. When you ask him, “Where’s your cup?” he can easily find it and show it to you. He knows where it is. It’s where it belongs, people.

You can even get him to clean up after himself, too. Like any small child, he adores pulling things out of drawers or cabinets and throwing them around on the floor. I apparently loved to do this when I was Eamon’s age. I would pull all the pots out of the cupboard and then just walk away, my general motis operendi being that everything should be out where you can easily see it (this still applies to all my jewelry today, which more or less lives on my dresser). The difference is, when Eamon is done, he will usually clean up after himself. Sometimes you have to prompt him, but he happily does it.

For instance: one day Eamon was having lunch in his high chair. He had his sippy cup full of milk, which he began sprinkling everywhere, including the floor. I didn't notice that the milk was on the floor until I took Eamon out of his high chair, and he went over, grabbed the kitchen towel, and started mopping up the floor. What kind of kid does that? (In all fairness, he then proceeded to use the towel to taunt the dog like he was a bullfighter, so he does act like a normal 15 month old, too).

What does this mean for the future? Who knows? Will Eamon be the best thing to ever happen to us because he’ll keep the house straight for us? Or will he be like my mother—who used to insist that the door to my room stay shut so that she didn’t have to see the mess—only he’ll be shutting his bedroom door just to keep the clean in?