Continuing my recent, surprising burst of will to organize, I decided to straighten up the living room yesterday. This led me to go through the toy bins and cull all the surely unnecessary items that had settled there over the past few years. I’ll be shocked if any of the offending articles are actually missed, but I have decided to keep them in the storage room for a couple of weeks, just in case. It has happened before that a seemingly banal piece of plastic or cloth was, in fact, vitally important to the happiness of one (or more) of my children.

The culling complete, I summoned the courage to look under the couch. I had a theory that a few things might have slipped beneath it over time. A few minutes of excavation resulted in shock. And shame.

Yes, what I found beneath the sofa filled yet another bag, or would have, had the items not been so joyously received by my young charges.

“Our THINGS!” said Alden. “OUR OLD TOYS!” said Kato. It was if they had just been reunited with a hot bath after nine months in the Arctic. They clutched their precious bits and scattered them to the corners of the room, undoing my hard work and vanquishing my joy.

And teaching me a lesson: never clean up under the couch with witnesses present.