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All things on the floor

It offends small children deeply when toys, books and clothes are orderly and organised. Their mission in life is to place all their belongings (and any of yours they can reach) on the floor.

The Unpacking Of Things is their raison d’être and ‘All things on the floor’ is their life’s motto. If you own things, they will find those things and they will put them on the floor. Seeing everything you own scattered across a living space makes them feel at peace.

Watching you pack everything away is a weird and fascinating game, and they’ll be happy to see you do it, because it gives them another opportunity to unpack all of your belongings again and lay them out for all to see.

They do not know how to put things back, by the way. Even if you showed them 7834 times how to put things back, they would stare at you blankly like you were trying to teach them how to land a plane. And yet, they see you unlock your phone once …

As they grow older, they will mix this up with some hide-and-seek. They’ll take random items and place them in strange places for you to find. Things like a spatula under your pillow. A football in your shower. A book in your toilet bowl. A headless doll in your bed, which is basically a toddler’s way of letting you know they mean business.

My son once took my wedding rings and hid them in a hotel room. We tore that room to pieces searching for them. He was only about fifteen months old and only knew a few words but we interrogated that child like the criminal he was.

He eventually pointed at the room’s stereo, where I found my engagement ring inside the cassette deck, and my wedding and eternity bands inside the speaker.

The moral of the story is: cassette decks haven’t been used in decades but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check inside every one you see. You have no idea what someone’s arsehole toddler might’ve hidden in there.

PS: Asking them to stop throwing things around the house will result in a tantrum. Probably a throwing one.