I’ve been noticing something over the last couple of weeks.

I don’t want to turn this post into a gripe session about some of my children, because that’s not really what I want to talk about. However. Let’s just say that some of my children…well…being tidy is not a skill they have in their arsenals, despite my attempts to teach that skill for the last six years. I could go into detail, but then I WOULD be complaining.

The reason this is notable is because I have noticed something with Baby BonBon.

She picks up after herself. She picks up after others. She will take her diapers after she is changed and throw them away. She will pick up scraps or other things off the floor, if they are trash, and throw them away. She will sometimes throw away things that didn’t actually NEED to be thrown away. She will put back her crayons after using them.

BonBon is just a little shy of 18 months old.

My older children, between the ages of 10 and 14, just don’t seem to care to do those things. Granted, they are my stepchildren, but I think it’s possibly evident that what they see at home at an early age determines to some extent how they will be when they are older. It could be noted, as well, that my stepkids seem to have even more of a tidiness problem when they visit their biomom, who has recently complained that they just leave their trash wherever they choose, and don’t pick up after themselves. She asked Hubs if this was allowed at our house. HAHAHAHAHA. No. No it’s not.

So I’m stuck wondering….did my bio-kids get genes that just like cleaning up more, or is it purely nurture rather than nature? Because seriously? My stepkids have been around me for 6 years. In my opinion, that’s plenty of time to have learned the survival skill of not trashing my house. And yet….it still happens.

It’s just so interesting to see how BonBon picks up things, you know?