Can You Give Your Child a Complex?

Admittedly, I am a bit of a neat freak. And a bit of a clean freak. But now I am worried that I am giving it to Travis! I appreciate the clean part, but not the freak part.


We were at Wal-mart the other day and I was looking at sponges and Travis asked to get his own sponge- orange with dots- to add to his collection of cleaning supplies. He already has a purple sponge, a cleaning cloth, and a spray bottle. Now he has his own cleaning bin for all his supplies. And yesterday he asked to clean the counter in our bathroom. Not a problem. When I came back he had taken everything off the counter so he could really clean it. He had put hand soap on the sponge and there were bubbles everywhere by the time he had finished. But it was clean!


And then in the afternoon he thought the kitchen floor looked dirty and he needed to mop. I was trying to make dinner and I didn't think it would help me to have a wet floor as I attempted to assemble a meal, so I said I didn't think it was the right time. He was very upset and came up with all sorts of ways he thought it would be okay, and the one I finally accepted was that he mop the back hall and close the door so Justin couldn't get in the wet floor. He jumped up and down with glee when I gave him the okay. I only gave him a few inches of water in the bucket and it was all gone by the time he was done, and the floor was an inch deep with water. But he was SO proud of himself. He told Randy what he had done when he arrived from work, and he also told him that it was now HIS job to mop and clean the counters, all by himself. Mommy said. Hmmmm, not quite. But this morning he was ready to clean the counters again and mop the floor. I convinced him that the floor would be okay for another day, but he cleaned the counter quite well. Should we start saving for therapy?