Ignatz redeemed...this time

Oh, right! I should have mentioned this sooner. Remember the Lost Wallet, With Housekey Attached? Well, um. It has been found, in a place I was sure I'd looked, but not thoroughly enough. In DrBob's drawer.

We have a...a thing-with-drawers (in German it's called a Kommode, *snork*) in the front hallway, with one drawer for each family member. For hats, scarves, mittens, that sort of thing. I did a cursory sweep through all of them, but failed to spot the black wallet in among DrBob's all-black accessory collection, because I didn't really expect it to be there, because everyone in the house knows which drawer is theirs. With one exception.

Yes, things do wind up in the wrong drawers, occasionally, but only - ONLY - on DrBob's watch. For instance, if the Sniglet's hat finds its way into my drawer, it happens on the day DrBob picked him up from kindergarten. We also have a shoe-shelf, and we all put things on it when we first come in, just to get our hands free for shucking jackets etc. We're all supposed to clean our stuff off the shoe-shelf right away, but we don't always. So Ignatz remembered leaving his wallet on the shoe-shelf, but didn't know what happened to it after that. I did posit that it might have gotten swept up in one of DrBob's cleaning jags, but DrBob, angry about the lost wallet, did not appreciate being accused, and hotly denied it.

However. Everybody knows which drawer is whose. Nobody ever puts anything in DrBob's drawer, except for DrBob. When he gets on his cleaning jags, he just wants every loose item out of sight - he does not, um, agree with my filing system, so he just throws everything in the nearest handy out-of-sight place. Frankly, all the evidence points to him this time. Of course he will never, ever admit that he might have been responsible for this, which means he won't apologize, which is unfortunate.

Do not let this lull you into thinking Ignatz doesn't have a problem with disorganization. He does. He never did find his pencil-case, though he managed to replace it with this funny Japanese thing my SIL sent one Christmas when, she told me, she was absolutely without inspiration and just threw some stuff in a box (1: thanks, Shel, those presents turned out to be really useful. 2: here we have reason to be glad Ignatz the Pack Rat never ever throws anything away). He never did find those other two house keys he lost, either, or any number of hats and gloves.

So yes, he is disorganized. But the point I wanted to make is that, while I do believe Ignatz has ADHD, and therefore has challenges to overcome that other kids don't, I also want you to notice that he lives in an environment that exacerbates his problems. Largely due to me, because I have organization problems myself, and I don't want you to think I'm ducking my responsibility here. But incidents like this one really, really don't help. Because if all the evidence points to DrBob, and he authoritatively denies his role in the latest crisis, then either Ignatz's self-esteem will have to take a hit, or else his respect for his father. Neither way is good.

This time Ignatz gave his dad a big hug and a thank you for finding his missing wallet. Nice that he remembered to say thank you, since that's a chronic problem. But I think that means he's shouldering all the blame for this mistake. Again.