(Originally posted in Facebook on July 19, 2019)
It’s been a while since M has gotten obsessed about anything, but it happened again last night.
Friday is trash collection day, so I asked him to get a garbage bag from underneath the kitchen sink. I wanted him to go around the house and get the trash together to put out at the curb, but I didn’t say that last bit, just that I wanted him to get the bag and then I went in the bathroom to brush my teeth while he got it.
He came in the bathroom with the bag and asked if I wanted him to put the “things that are in the back” into the bag. We have a dual trash container in the kitchen – garbage in the front, recycles in the back. The recycles go in a blue bin in the garage and you aren’t supposed to use plastic bags for them, so no, I didn’t want him to put the recycles in the plastic bag.
He had to wait until I finished brushing my teeth and he was in the kitchen, almost hopping from one foot to the other, he was so anxious to put those recycles in the garbage bag he had in his hand. I sent him downstairs to empty the trashcan in the den and then he was right back, “Now, can I empty these?” pointing to the recycles bin.
I finally shut the kitchen garbage bin SO HE COULDN’T SEE IT ANY MORE and sent him around the house to finish emptying the trash in the rest of the rooms. Then I had him empty the recycles into the big blue bin in the garage so it would no longer bother him.
Whew! When he gets focused like that, it’s tough to get him to move past it. Fortunately, he doesn’t get angry or belligerent about it. He’s very good natured – but he was very intent on that recycling!