Faithful blog followers may have recognised a bit of a rubbish bin theme developing here. There was the hanging out in the swing bin era and the time LB chucked the egg of trust in the bin. Tonight, it’s another bin tale.

A few years ago we had a family get-together at our gaff and my two young nephews turned up with an electronic bug each they’d just got from a local shop (well a pretty cool local shop really, so I shall give em a plug here)*.

The afternoon went on, the bugs whizzled around the table, food was eaten, wine and beer drunk and chat was chatted.  At some point, someone realised that the bugs had disappeared. We all looked but no, they were gone.  LB stayed very quiet and calm throughout the search.

“LB, have you seen the bugs?” I asked.
“Yes, Mum,” he said, straightaway.
“Oh. Where are they?”
“In the bin, Mum.”
“In the bin????? Whaddayamean?”

We opened the swing bin to see the two bugs, nestling in among slops and crud.

“Why did you throw them away?” I asked, bemused.
“Dunno, Mum.”

Tonight I noticed that LB was handling Tom’s bug, while watching Eddie Stobart videos on youtube.

“Hey,” I said. “Do you remember Zack and Toby’s bugs?”
“Yes, Mum.”
“Why did you throw them away?”
“Because I didn’t like the noise, Mum.”

Closure. Closure on the bug tale but also an illustration of how LB has grown to manage the overwhelmingness of the world he lives in. When he was younger, the bugs (without any of us realising) would probably have caused a meltdown. One of those random meltdowns we never understood, because there seemed to be no discernible cause. The tiny buzzing noise would have distressed him.

A few years on, he dealt with the noise. Ok, chucking em away wasn’t ideal but it was an effective strategy.

Now a few years on, he can actually explain why he did that (and draw on that enormous memory of his).

Seriously cracking progress.

*Another spooky moment. Googled Frog Orange only to find the bugs are on their home page… Hex bug nanos. How truly weird is that?