Every party has a pooper.

Today was day one of the Spring Cleaning Party over at SimpleMom.net. Any party without funny hats, and I'm in. Even did the pre-party homework (gather cleaning supplies, check). So when the first assignment was to just walk around and declutter tables and shelves, I thought 'Score! I'll get through at least two assignments, almost as good as my week in the life experiment.'

I dutifully decluttered and sorted our piles of junk: a Wal-Mart diaper box for donations, a Target diaper box for stuff to sell. Two rooms to go, and morning nap ends. My super helpful helper joins the party.

I put him down in the mud room, still clutterful, thinking that a tidy clean house might confuse the kid, be too much of a shock to his system. And while I worked on lunch, his usual sort of babble made me think he was up to his usual sort of activity: putting rocks in my slippers, untying Adam's sneakers, disassembling the dustbuster. You know, just generally making himself useful.

But no. He had found an all new way to be helpful -- re-sorting everything in my boxes. Not a single thing left on the floor, but very very few things where I had left them.

How early can you teach a kid to read? Because those boxes were clearly labeled.