Currently on top of my fridge there are a number of objects. Normally, there are a few miscellaneous items such as empty ice cube trays, bubbles, and a crazy bubble blower (for certain “crazy dancing in the bubbles” times of week).  But today it’s a full house.  In addition to the norm, the top of my fridge is hosting:

• one child-sized rocker
• one small plastic tub
• one medium lego tub
• one large rubbermaid tub

No, this isn’t some attempt of me doing a funky fung shui thing to bring me awareness to higher aspirations in life.  And it’s not a recommendation by Real Simple on how best to store tubs.  No, the items on top of my fridge are in time out.  Rather, they enable JJ to do things that put him in time out, but JJ wouldn’t think sitting on top of a really tall object would be such a bad thing.

In a period of twenty minutes JJ emptied his tub full of crayons and coloring tools.  Not so he could have better access to all of his coloring media, but rather so that he could throw the tub down the stairs, push it into the kitchen, and get into the drawer with the scissors and lip jive and fish food (a.k.a. the junk drawer).  After unsuccessfully trying to get JJ to take the tub back upstairs or at least out of the kitchen, it went into time out.

A few moments (quiet moments – those are always the foreboding ones) a noise of tumbling plastic was heard.  And then some clinking.  JJ had taken his Duplo tub, turned it upside down, and pushed it into my study to get my glass Mary Poppins figurine (yes, I have a Mary Poppins figurine.  I love her.  I can in fact say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious backwards).  Hubby took it away.  JJ put the tub on his head and started yelling so as to better hear himself, and apparently his self was telling him to throw the tub down the stairs to he could better play in the drawer with the knives.  Bye bye Duplo tub.

Moments later, the Rubbermaid tub holding all of his toys was dumped and used to get into the sink with the sharp, pointy objects.  Hubby put all the toys back into the tub.  JJ emptied them.  Again, time out for the tub.

The child-sized rocker, mine and my father’s before, is pretty much in permanent timeout:  it’s like JJ’s toddler version of a slim jim.

So, if you come over and we’re rockin’ a simplistic Japanese motif, just try and go with the flow.  And you might try limbering up before hand, cause it’s crossed-legged on the floor for our chairless abode, baby!

Daily Drivel, JJ Jawings