Getting to Know Him

Gary is still a cheerful guy. He is the cleanest of all my kids, and I don't just mean that thing where he insists on showering before going to football training* or SWIMMING for the love of all that is holy. By the way, he has very short hair. He really doesn't look different before and after the shower.

No, I mean that he CLEANS things. Kids either become oblivious to ground-in filth or else they decide that they like baths and bathe in the main bathroom. The one that I clean. There is another bathroom in the basement, but I won't go into it. Gary took the path chosen by no other: he cleaned the basement bathroom. I mean he really cleaned it. He spent an hour scrubbing. It looks new.

Someone spilled something in the frig and I offered him $5 to clean it. He took out everything, scrubbed the entire inside of the frig until it looked new. Then he sorted the things that were in the frig, threw out the old ones, cleaned the bottles of the things that were still good, and put them back. I paid him $10.

Andrew complained to me the other day that was having trouble finding things since Gary keeps cleaning and moving things.

The rec room is in a constant state of ickiness. Andrew has a crowd over every week. Brian and Evan carry down dishes of food. Nobody will acknowledge that any particular pop can or dirty dish is their responsibility. They will spend more time arguing over who left a dirty bowl on the floor than it would take to take the thing upstairs. I cope with this situation by not going down stairs unless absolutely necessary.

I heard Gary on the phone to his dad though. Mostly Gary was cheerful, but he did joke/complain about how the rec room always looked like someone threw a party in it -- mostly because pretty much there always was one. Now of course I am worried that he will complain to someone about the fifth in which we live. Sort of makes me glad that we had that surprise inspection last week. The family developer knows exactly how bad it really is.

But this post is supposed to be about Gary. Let's see, other than being really clean... he has several friends who are girls and does not seem to have friends who are boys. This may or may not change as he has a chance to know kids at school. He likes to cook, especially desserts, and is quite good at it. Aside from the fact that we are slobs (I exaggerate, but not much) he says he likes it here. He appreciates our lack of structure, more politely stated as our flexibility.

He doesn't watch TV much, unless Evan is. He enjoys video games, but really enjoys reading.

And that's pretty much it for now.

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*He has training of some sort or other all summer.