Color Me Crazy

Anyone who suggests that I'm a neat, tidy, organized kind of person doesn't really know me -- or has only been over to my house when I'm expecting company.

The counters and tables are regularly covered in piles and I shudder to think what our bathrooms would look like without help from a housekeeper. Even my desk at work is a mangled mish-mash of lists, notebooks, brochures and reports.

But I do like for everything to have a place -- and ideally for all those things to be in said places.

Particularly when it comes to Play-Doh. I mean, there's a reason that each color comes in its own container with the little color-coded lid, right?

So why does my daughter love to inflict so much pain by doing this?

Watching her gleefully smush all the colors together actually makes my palms itch. Or maybe that's just an ingredient in the Play-Doh. Either way, it's all I can do to let her enjoy it the way she wants to.

When she's busy building something, I catch myself at least trying to group the rainbow lumps into color-themed piles (note the pinkish, bluish and yellowish balls above). But it doesn't work. She sees what I'm doing and starts taking chunks of my piles and blending them into a new shape.

So how do I keep from destroying one of her creative outlets by enforcing my organizational rules into her game? I turn to my own creative outlet -- writing -- to get me out of her way.

Now excuse me while I go check out Pippi's newest creation: the pinkyellowgreenbluetanpurple double-winged, four-eyed wedding bird.
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