Dropsey Disease

Mikka is my most favourite 7 year old in the world.  There is no one like her (unless you count me when I was 7!!) - she is full of giggles, naughtiness, curiosity, humor and compassion.  She can drive me crazy and into a love frenzy in a matter of a moment.  There is just something about Mikka.  Mikka, however, has a disease.  It's not a normal medical disease that one can find in your text book. This disease is passed down from generation to generation and can be over come. Mikka suffers from "Dropsey Disease".  What, pray tell, is this?  Many of you may understand immediately - you have have a spouse or kids, other family members or friends with this illness.  I suffered from it and still find myself  falling into its trap.  Darren has the sickness fine tuned. Kamrin, well, Kamrin is like Kara and hardly suffers at all from it.  Dropsey disease is the ailment whereby you drop stuff and simply don't pick it up.  You drop your shoes, your jacket, your backpack, your blanket, your toothbrush, your hairbrush, your jeans, your socks, your books, your barbies, your lego, your crayons - anywhere and everywhere!!!  I have fought this weakness all my life.  Kara and I grew up in a home where we didn't leave for school unless our beds were made.  Kara found this easy - Me, not so much.  Kara's room was always perfect.  To the point where I believe she was somewhat neurotic about it.  When she and I would have an argument, my retaliation would be to go in her room and mess things up.  I would never break anything - but would gently put the pretties from her dresser on to her floor, mess up her bedspread, that kind of awful thing. She would FLIP out.  It was awesome.  Not too long ago I witnessed Mikka doing something similar to Kamrin's bed when she was mad at her.  Kamrin and she still shared a room then and Kam was done making her bed and was proud of this fact.  Mikka was mad and when Kam had her back turned, Mikka ripped it apart.  That one sent me reeling back 30 years!!  I spent a lot of time in my room - and knew I liked it being clean - I just didn't like doing it all the time.  Fast forward to today and I still am like that.   I LOVE a clean and tidy house and it often is - but there are just days when we are running around too much and there is no time to simply pick up after ourselves and it gets bad.   These are the days I pray I have no Drop in guests!!  Mikka and Luci now share a room and it's going to be the death of me. Luci picks up all of Mikka's habits - both good and bad - so now I am left with 2 slobs.  Trust me - I have done every approach to try and heal the disease - but I think the genetics are too strong to change.  Darren is the master of dropping off his shoes at the front door, and his soccer equipment and then leaves dishes on his bedside table or coffee table.  My favourite are the socks he throws across the room.  My new trick is to take the kids things away that are simply left out.  Mikka is supposed to tidy the play room after she plays in there with Luci.  Sometimes she does it, other times I am almost killed when I walk through it to my computer in the dark by stepping on some darn polly pocket car.  A few weeks ago she lost the privilege of all her Webkinz Stuffies, as I enforced the "no toys in the bedroom" rule.  She was quick to blame Lu.  Luci just stared at me wide eyed.  Nonetheless, the webkinz have been gone for a month now and to be honest - I think they have totally forgotten about them.  But now the big one has happened.  The Barbies were out and I left them out for over a day. I hinted, I suggested and still, naked ladies remained everywhere.  So, I packed them all up and they are now stored in my closet.  At first I thought I was doing myself in as they play with those barbies everyday.  But, like the Webkinz, they are playing with other toys instead.  So perhaps I did them a favour and helped them break out of a monotonous Barbie-playing routine and we can now mix it up with some Lego and Fisher Price!  So, at the end of the day - I try to help Mikka with her disease, but I think it just keeps growing new legs and keeps on going.  Perhaps when she is a mom and her kid is a slob she'll think back to when she was a kid and then call me to apologize.