A place of his own

So The Boy is home. The size of the household suddenly grew by 25%. Strangely, though, there seems to be nearly 100% more clutter lying about.

With a lot of nudging and reminding (trying VERY hard not to resort to nagging) all the STUFF he brought home yesterday is either put away, stored, or staged in an area to be stored today. The Boy even cleaned out his bedroom closet, which was stuffed to the brim with old toys and bunny-sized dust bunnies.

I’m so glad to have him home. He’s a different person now than he was when he went off for his first year of college last August. More thoughtful. Less impatient. Obviously thankful to have a happy, loving family to come home to.

Sigh.

But one thing that has not changed is his “interesting” ADHD symptoms. That’s where the nudging, reminding and nearly nagging comes in. Because here’s how his brain works: He either gets entirely engrossed in an activity so that nothing short of an earthquake of bomb blast will get his attention, OR he’s zipping from one thing to another, leaving several projects strewn about and unfinished at any given time.

Thank goodness he has such a charming and effervescent personality. That makes up for a lot.

Yesterday he got his lovely “new” bedroom arranged and set up to suit him. It was fun to watch The Boy make this freshly decorated, more mature space be his own. Part of the project involved setting up a 4-speaker surround sound system that was the ultimate dorm room find – some other guy on his floor was about to pitch it in the dumpster. He sent me and excited text last week with a photo of the system, and I knew it was a done deal – this monstrosity was making its way to our home.

It’s great to see him so pleased about his new space. But I can’t help missing my temporary sitting room, with its soothing, calm color scheme and uncluttered look. Not that I’m in a hurry for him to move away again so I can have it back. But I am seeing that there are some small advantages to that empty nest thing.

 

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