Pocket Full of Sunshine

The Mud Puddle has discovered the joy and wonder of having pockets in your pants. He has taken to stuffing his hands down in them and hunching his back when he is just standing around. It doesn’t look at that comfortable to me, but it has become his pose of choice.

He especially likes to carry things around in his pockets. I am sure any day I will get a bill from daycare for playground rocks because he has picked up, put in his pocket, and brought home every single stinking rock they have.
Every time I do laundry (I am not a pocket checker, they should just be grateful I keep them in clean clothes) I must pull out six or seven from the washing machine after I do a load – all sparkly clean and headed straight for the trash. That is in addition to the one or two dirty ones I am handed every afternoon when I pick him up.
I should try and rig a pair of those prison pants where they stand around and let the rocks and dirt from their escape hole fall out around the bottom of their feet and I could put the rocks BACK in the playground.
He always has a ‘present’ for me at the end of the day and it is usually a pocket rock or acorn or piece of string. And he will do random, surprise spot checks to make sure I keep them so I can’t throw them away until after he goes to bed. Believe me, I am all for keeping mementos of his childhood but his baby book is buckling at the seams as it is and I would need a landfill to house all the crap he gives me.

Yesterday morning the Mud Puddle comes into his room where I am getting him a pair of socks and he says to me “I have NOTHING in my pocket”. Without even having to turn around I knew clearly that he did have SOMETHING in his pocket – he is smart but still four. So I ask what it was and he shows me a Matchbox truck. And he wants to take it to daycare. Now, the daycare rule (which I agree with and follow to a “T”) is no toys other than a stuffed animal (lovey) unless it is "Show and Tell Day" – which is Friday not Wednesday.

So I say to him, “I am going to act like I didn’t see that and if you take it to school in your pocket I won’t know about it.” Trying to conspire with a four-year-old to sneak contraband into daycare is laughable. He showed me the truck three times on the way out to the car, four times in the car (I didn’t turn around but he would say ‘I am showing you my truck’ so I would know what he was doing in the backseat. He gets that I can’t turn around when I am driving so he keeps a running color commentary for me “I am showing you ten”, “I am negging Ellie”. You get the idea). We get to daycare and he shows it to the Director, and two of his friends. As I was leaving he showed it to his teacher who was less than impressed.