Coming together...sort of

Unpacking, unpacking and yes, more unpacking. This is the theme of my last two weeks. It seemed as though I would never see the carpet. The kids helped where they could. Slowly the boxes dwindled and the floor it turns out is wood. This week I decided to dive into Jack's room. I have been dreading unpacking his things for weeks and put it off as long as I could. Jack is a pack-rat. A fact that I have serious issues with but I won't bore you with the details. He has several boxes in which he has tried to unpack himself. The problem as I see it, is he has to many things and they are just so interesting. He starts out as grumpy as any child who is forced to do a chore. He grudgingly opens boxes, only after many threats and attempts by Ginger to make off with found objects. After unwrapping only one or two items in a box his demeanor changes. Suddenly, he is completely absorbed in looking for that one particular thing he hasn't seen in 9 months. Needless to say when he finds it, unpacking is pretty much over. Therefore, Jack has every box in his room open, yet they are all still full. Dragging Jack along for the "FUN" I dive headlong into box after box until we are down to the last remaining pieces. The last box in Jack's room, "OH HAPPY DAY!" I realize quickly that I have little to no idea what the pieces in the bottom of the box belong to. I enlist Jack, who by now is deeply lost in his own little world of Lego's. I show him piece after piece and ask what it belongs to and where I should put it. The more I talk and ask questions the more Jack becomes annoyed and disgusted until finally he yells, " Where is my red bag?!"

His red bag? What is he talking about and why is this important? "I don't know what you are talking about." I reply, more than a little perplexed.

"You know! The red bag that has the Velcro that used to hold the Larry tube." he states matter of fact.

"OH. Now I remember. But I have no idea where it is." I answer, more than a little relieved that I have figured out the red bag.

"I need the red bag!" he shouts at me.

"Jack, you don't need the red bag right now. Right now we need to finish putting the rest of these pieces away." I state in my most Motherly voice.

"They all go in the red bag." he states.

"They cannot all go in the red bag. I'll admit I don't know what a lot of these pieces are but I do know that they don't all go together." I said.

"Of course they don't. " He states absentmindedly. "The red bag is for my miscellaneous pieces."

Of course it is. I not only have a pack rat as a son, but I believe my son has just progressed from junk drawer to junk bag.