The hidden stashes of the four-year-old male...

Pig Jr. returned to school this morning after an extended weekend. (Thank you, Independence Day!) Since his room and my room were the only two rooms I had washed windows in, I decided my task for myself today would be to finish cleaning those two rooms up to Open House standards. I only want to leave myself some quick dusting, vacuuming, and bed-making on that already stressful day.

It was fairly straightforward for me to finish cleaning my room. I dusted, picked everything up off the floor, which was mostly under the bed storage boxes, vacuumed, and then mopped the wood floors. While that room was drying out, I figured I would tackle Pig Jr.'s room. In theory, that should take me even less time since it is a smaller room, right?

I neglected to factor in the hidden stashes of the four-year-old male. The boy had things hidden in just about every possible nook and cranny. I found papers he had colored, drawings his sisters had made, lone socks that were missing their mates, tiny cars and trucks that had been dismantled, building blocks, a roster of people Horse wanted to give her phone number and address to before school let out for the summer, a remote control for a car with dead batteries, and a couple of holographic bookmarks that were bent in half.

Given that I had just spent hours on Sunday cleaning up and organizing his toy box, I have no idea from what planet all of these items appeared. I thought I had already gotten rid of his stashed papers when I had moved all of his furniture to paint his room this weekend. I had even washed his sheets and found new homes for all of the items he had put between his blankets for safekeeping. For a kidlet who spent as much time as he did out of his room while I worked, how on earth did he have time to move things around again without my knowledge? I swear Pig Jr. must have the ability to move things by telekinesis.

Naturally, since my little man was in school when I discovered all of these hidden stashes, I did what any self-respecting mother with five days left until her Open House would do: I chucked what I could, threw the rest in his toy box, and slapped a lock on that sucker so Pig Jr. can only get in there with adult permission. He still has unlimited access to the toys on his shelves, but this way I will know when he is potentially moving things about in a manner that will need to be cleaned up before our neighbors come rooting around our house.