Pants-Free Parenting: Kids show love in unexpected ways

At first I thought I was going crazy (or crazier). I kept finding wadded up balls of paper and tissue in my purse and by my bed. I asked my husband, 'Am I doing this? What is happening? Is our daughter doing this?”

My husband, the man who has seen me not once, but three times, put the eggs in the freezer and who has built in a line item in the budget for AAA to rescue me for all those times I lock my keys in the car while it's running, patted my arm. 'Yeah, it's probably you.”

But then the toilet paper started going missing. I had noticed that we seemed to be running out of toilet paper rather quickly, but this is known to happen especially after I forget to plan meals and we eat tacos for a week. I thought nothing of it and put a large package of toilet paper under the sink.

A few hours after that, I heard my husband yelling from the bathroom. 'Umm, I need toilet paper!”

I stood up to get some for him. But my three-year-old daughter began running upstairs. 'OK, daddy, I will help you!”

On a whim, I followed her. She ran into her room and lifted up her bed skirt and pulled out a roll of toilet paper and marched it into the bathroom. I peeked under the bed and saw ten toilet paper rolls and five boxes of tissues. I went to find my daughter, who was sitting outside the bathroom door smiling.

'Why is there toilet paper under your bed?”

She shrugged.

'Ellis, you have to stop taking all the toilet paper.” I said this in a kind and gentle voice. I was hoping we could talk about her penchant for paper pilfering, maybe get to the root cause of it, but she started sobbing.

'But mommy, how will all the monsters wipe their butts?”

'How about just one roll of toilet paper?”

She took a deep breath, stopped crying and then rolled her eyes. 'OK, fine.”

That's when I decided to ask her if she was leaving me presents of paper by my bed and in my purse. She nodded. 'Yes, those are your presents. Do you like them?”

I had been throwing out small pieces of paper for weeks, irritated by the constant accumulation of little wads of trash that seemed to manifest themselves out of thin air. But looking at my daughter, in that moment, and watching her smile so proudly. I suddenly wanted to go through the trash and collect each bit of paper and keep them forever in a jar. 'I love them,” I said and hugged her. 'I love my presents.”

'Good,” she said, 'I give them to you, so you will never forget your little daughter.”

A few days later, I stumbled into bed late, and laid down on a pile of books. I turned on the light to see that all my daughter's books, toys and toilet paper had accumulated on my side of the bed, like one large ritual offering to the gods of moms. Each little piece of trash, made by her hands was an offering of love. I moved them to the night stand.

'We should talk to her about this,” my husband said.

'No, she's fine,” I told him. 'She's just loving us in her little weirdo way.”

Turning out the lights, I knocked over a row of princess dolls that lined the floor and stepped on something soft and squishy and realized that the day when everything is clean, is the day my children will be gone. So, for now, I really love my trash.