Pencil

Little bear has his little ways. Last night was an ample demonstration. He has taken to having a pencil behind his ear, like one of his favourite characters on Disney - Handy Manny. It has to be a particular pencil, however, half length hb, red with a gilt coloured end and a rubber. Last night he remembered his necessity and trotted downstairs to find it. He brought it up, then he lost his pencil in his room.

Little bear's room is a significant size, about four metres square and CRAMMED with toys. Not only are there hundreds of books, there are tubs full of cars (he loves his toy cars), all the soft toys that he has ever owned that I have been unable to prune and all the tat that comes free with children's magazines that he can't bear to part with, not even the broken bits. He is even refusing to allow me to throw away slippers that are too small for him - though I manage some discreet thinning now and again. A pencil less than four inches long in that mess makes a needle in the haystack look really obvious, especially as he had been playing and there was an ample distribution of all his 'things'.

There was a complete meltdown. Little bear had to find his pencil. OH and I abandoned the attempt after a while as it was just not getting us anywhere and little bear was shattered. I wish you could have seen him physically trying to stop me and OH leaving, as 'I can't find my pencil on myself'.

So this morning I went up to his room (after a lot of urging from little bear) with bin sacks (forlorn hope) and wipes and the first thing I did was pick up a hand knitted blanket to fold it. The pencil fell out.

I managed to pull out the bed, hoover under it, clear out a lot of stuff and actually discreetly get rid of some stuff from under the bed. Then I abandoned the attempt. There is just so much stuff, and he is instantly, passionately attached to things that he hasn't touched in years because he is worried it may go. Rightly worried, to be honest. I shall have another go when he is not here.

It does raise ethical issues. Little bear is nearly four, he should have some say in his life, but on the other hand he is clinging on to broken bits and stuff he hardly knows is there. I don't want to get rid of stuff that he does enjoy, I want him to be happy, but I think I need to be ruthless on this.