Mean Mama - tough love

This takes a bit of explaining. A couple of months ago I decided that Martin's room needed a little more space. It currently has 2 wardrobes, 2 beds, a changing table, a chest of drawers, and a kitchen table (which he uses for his desk). One of the wardrobes was left here by the previous owners of the house, and is kind of falling apart. So I decided that its day had come. I emptied it of all of the various and sundry stuff being stored stuffed in it, and sweetly asked my husband to take it apart and dispose of it. Well, he decided it was ok where it was for the time being, and so it's been sitting there empty. Well, for Mr. Martin Alexander, it was a blessing in disguise. It was quickly transformed into "woods" for his animals. He has tons and tons of toy animals, and he loves nothing better than to set them up in rows, or arrange them in special ways. OK. So. He got every animal that could have ever conceivably set foot in a forest and arranged them in his "woods". Then he built myriads of lego trees, bushes, etc. He built a small Indian settlement (since everyone knows that Indians live in the woods). He finally (after much pleading and promising) pursuaded me to allow him to put a large bowl of water in his woods, for all of his toy fish. Then he attempted to elicit a promise from me that I would "never mess up his woods". He even had me write a sign (which he dictated). (See below).

So, it's been a couple of weeks now. And over these weeks I have heard him putting his woods animals to bed. Conscientiously turning off the lights so that they can sleep, and encouraging us all to keep our voices down so as not to wake his animals. He has also done quite a bit of coloring and crafting of things to go in his woods. Food, a sun, a bee, flowers, etc. Well, it's gotten kind of really messy in there. And so today I finally told him that he would have to clean out his woods. (We were also having the problem that there were not very many legos left to play with - which Olivia spends HOURS on - because they were all absolutely necessary for the comfort of his animals.) Well, sure enough, he was distraught and immediately began pleading on behalf of his woods and their inhabitants. Then Christian had the brilliant idea to tell him that he could take pictures of his woods before we cleaned out the wardrobe. And that just worked like magic. He was pleased to be able to take pictures, and I was pleased to finally clean out all that junk. There were popcorn seeds (for his animals to eat), a carefully hoarded cookie (also for his animals to eat), millions of crumbs, and a bowl full of slimy water. Yeah, it was kind of gross. But now it's all cleaned out, and we are all still friends. Smile. I honestly felt kind of mean. But it's been like that for a month, and I just didn't have the heart to make him clean it out - until today - I mustered up enough "tough love". :)

So here are the pictures he took.

On discussing with Martin which animals are "woods animals" and which are not... (He wanted to transfer his wood animals to the windowsill). 

Martin: "This is a pelican (holding up toy pelican). Papa told me Pelicans live in the woods."
Me: "Um, ok. Pretty sure Papa's wrong about that being a wood animal, but you can put it with your other wood animals anyway."
Martin: "No Mama. Papa hat recht (Papa is right). Papa knows everything Mama. Papa not wrong. Papa knows everything."
Me: Awkward silence. "OK, you must be right. I'm not in the habit of disagreeing with people who know everything. Consider me corrected."
Martin: "Yeah. Papa is right."
Wish I could describe the smug look on his Papa's face.
Priceless.
And I couldn't even spout off.