Pudd’ng is certainly not a neat miss

Breed-room, (noun): a little girl’s sleeping quarters, which is the h.q. of the NCC (Nairobi City Clutter) – and breeds discontent between mom and daughter. That’s my wife’s definition of our daughter’s bedroom.

Barred-room, (noun): a baby girl’s boudoir, where mom’s officially barred because of her wet blanket tendencies. That’s our daughter’s rejoinder.

“Why do you always mess up your wardrobe after I’ve arranged it? Your bedroom doesn’t look like a girl’s,” my wife griped this morning, as our daughter probably thought, “Duh! One girl’s clutter is another girl’s classicism”.

This is one battle I’ll never win. Dad’s smart. He’s signed a nonaligned pact with his daughter: clutter all you want, but only in your backyard.

HOME TRUTHS

Last year, our SACCO organised a session for its members with a team of researchers from a public university. With plans to build homes for its members on the capital city’s outskirts, all our sights were set on cribs. Until …   

“We want to find out if you took your children into consideration when you were making plans to move to a new neighbourhood,” the researchers informed us.

Moving physical addresses is essentially an adults’ affair. Kids are rarely consulted. The researchers hoped this brainstorming would help us make better choices, besides dishing us some home truths. 

Refused and accepted calls  

Because our daughter is now in her own bedroom, some nighttime habits have changed. Before, if she was pressed in the dead of the night, she would just call and dad would be up in a second. 

The first nights alone in her bedroom were strange to her. We slept with our door open so we could hear her tossing and turning, her signal for a near-bursting bladder.

Asking Pudd’ng to use the bathroom before she turns in doesn’t always help. She will say it has refused, only for it to, um, “accept” a few minutes later.

Two different times baby girl wet her bed; something she’s never done. First time because she couldn’t find the light switch. Second time because I didn’t hear her signal. But she’s now used to this new environment.

Self-contained mess

Kitchen, hair salon, art workshop and everything in between. These are some of the activities that go on inside our daughter’s self-contained mess of a bedroom. When it’s a hair salon, you’ll find her braiding Abby’s – her doll’s – locks, assorted salon stuff strewn all over.

And when it’s a kitchen, she’ll come to my home office to take my order.

“Excuse me daddy, what will you have? Rice and meat, or ugali and mboga ya kienyeji?” she will give me a list of items to choose from. Afterwards, she brings the order in toy utensils that one of her aunts bought her.

It’s only a matter of time before our daughter gets lost in her clutter. But other things get constantly lost. When she wants to do her homework, she spends hours searching for misplaced stuff. 

“Dah-dee? Have you seen my eraser?” she will ask, to which I’ll reply that she should read between the lines of our nonaligned pact.

Pudd’ng’s poser

Twice, when Pudd’ng’s uncle visited us, we have asked – more like told – our daughter to sleep in our bedroom. She’s always asking if she can sleep with us. Plus, there are times she crashes in our bed, before I later carry her to her bedroom. With this in mind, we assumed that she would jump at our request.

Hell, yeah. Pudd’ng jumped. Twice. We thought it was all good, until she dropped a poser …  

“When you tell me to sleep in your bedroom and for uncle to sleep in mine, no one even asks for my permission.”

Wow. Talk about jumping the gun.

Just goes to prove what those SACCO researchers were alluding to: kids have a say too. Out of the mouths of babes can come some real home truths.

Domestic tourist

Several nights ago, Tenderoni peeped inside our daughter’s bedroom. On weekdays, baby girl hits the sack by, latest, 8pm. But we check on her to make sure she’s tucked in right. 

“Come see what your daughter’s up to,” Tenderoni called me.

Pudd’ng has an orange, blue, green, red and blue little umbrella. On entering her bedroom, save for the darkness, you would have thought Pudd’ng was lounging beachside.

The kaleidoscopic umbrella was opened and propped right at the head of the domestic tourist’s bed, which she was sprawled in. Dead to the world. Dreaming of a holiday on a white sandy beach … sorry, tiled cluttered floor.