“World's Messiest Room Award” was an Archies’ poster put
up on the door of my room when growing up… and frankly, it was more cosmetic
than a reflection of reality. Being the obedient 90’s kid, I didn’t have the
liberty to live up to the award…but it gave a “cool’ and a “bohemian” touch to
an otherwise prim and proper state of things in my so-called room during an age
when the concept of privacy was literally unheard of!
Little did I know that there was someone more
deserving of the award than me and that too almost three decades later…a mini
me of sorts …my daughter! My ten year old couldnt be bothered about the mess she creates and we are at our wit’s end with her dont-care attitude about the chaos in her room! Her table is perpetually cluttered
with her stationery (which is and always will be her first love!), her
innumerable diaries filled with her random sketches, books that she has been
reading, or has already read and plans to read again, or the new books checked
out from the library, origami craft works and the resultant craft waste, abandoned
handcrafts kept as knick-knacks (passed on by another hoarder in our family!😊),
half eaten fruit bowls, chocolate wrappers, crumpled paper with disregarded
drawings….you name the waste and Aadya’s table will have it! Don’t even get me
started on what she dumps on her bed, her mini drawing table and her mini trampoline
that also doubles up as temporary stack for even more junk! So much so that the
earlier inhabitant of her room (her older brother) is often appalled at what his
erstwhile room has become! No wonder it became almost impossible for the siblings
on the opposite sides of the spectrum on the point of neatness to share a room!
With her older brother having moved to his own room, Aadya has the entire room
to herself…… for making a mountain of a mess, while she couldn’t care less!
It's been a while since I picked up a picture book for my not-so-little-one owing to the fact that she now considers herself all too grown up for a picture book, and is miffed that it deprives her of a chapter book that she could have borrowed instead as per her 6-book plan of Kahaani box library. But I couldn’t resist picking out “Zippy Messes Up” by Anitha Balachandran and hoped it could instill the importance of cleaning up, in my untidy little devil.
Part of the Zippy series, featuring an anthropomorphic
Zebra named Zippy and her group of friends all belonging different species
with distinct personalities. Zippy and her friends are forced to shift their play indoors to Chikki,
the monkey’s room, owing to the rains outside. As its time to wrap up their
games of cars, carrom board, paper crafts, blocks, jigsaw puzzles all played over
cookies and sandwiches, they finally acknowledge the mess in the room! (That never happens in our case!) Reluctantly
they pick up the toys one by one and put them back where they belong, whilst
getting their feet stuck in the wet and gooey mess of food leftovers, wiping
the walls clean of the paint stains, and exerting all their energies into
pushing the carrom board across the floor and Chikki’s room is finally made livable
after all the Shramdan! A
nice little book to goad your little ones to clean up after themselves. I was
hoping that our little slob would take a cue from Zippy and her friends, only
to find her smart-mouthing her way through her messiness with saying “An artist’s room will always be messy”! 😕