Gotta admit there’s some logic there…

Captain Adventure walked into the room where I was working to ask for a snack. It was an involved request that started with crackers and escalated into a five course meal with wine pairings and puff pastry dessert with Grand Marnier chaser before winding up back at crackers again.

As we were walking out of the room toward the kitchen, he quite deliberately dragged his feet through the laundry I had been folding on the floor, scattering it all over the place and irking his mother no end. This kind of thing is altogether too common with him – he’ll kick and stomp things on the floor no matter what they are, from toys to his sisters.

It’s destructive and annoying and it has gotta stop.

“Hey!” I barked. “Huh-uh, no way. You don’t go kicking things just because they’re on the floor!”

“Welllllll, den,” he replied without sparing me the slightest glance and still heading for the kitchen. “You shud-ent leaf-it tings on da fwoor. (You shouldn’t leave things on the floor, for those who don’t speak Autistic Five Year Old.)”

“WHAAAAAAAT?!” Oh no, he did not just diss me in my hour of disciplining…I swung him around to face me in my all my wrathful glory. “Captain. Adventure. You do not!!! go around kicking my nice clean laundry like that! You know better!!”

“Wellllllllllll, you shud-ent leaf-it tings on da fwoor, a-cause I might swip! And fawl dow-nuh! (You shouldn’t leave things on the floor, because I might slip! And fall down!)” he informed me, with only the slightest tinge of guilt.

You can imagine how hard it was to keep a straight face and reiterate that stomping / kicking / scattering the laundry was not OK.

Eventually he agreed not to do that anymore, although I suspect his ‘OK, I not kick da fings on da fwoor – sowwy, mommy!’ was more about getting me to shut up already and get my crackers, woman! than any actual intention to not go around kicking anything he sees on the floor or repentance for creating extra work for his poor, long-suffering momma.

Oh my stars and garters, that child is smart and stubborn and so deliciously cute that it is almost impossible to stay mad at him…even if he did get muddy little shoe prints on my freshly washed sheets…