“Spring has sprung!!”  As I write this it is a beautiful day.  Birds are singing and every once in awhile I can see the rabbit in back poke his nose out of the trees to see what is going on.

Max and I have been riding our bikes a lot this past week.  We’ve also been walking and running and…

Oh yeah, this is also the time of year to do the big cleanup.  We have been working in the back yard for awhile.  Some of the fir trees broke in an ice storm over the winter.  We have been sawing up the huge pile of branches and slowly getting closer to the trunks.

One job took precedence this weekend.  We have a single car garage that has not had a car in it since we moved in 8 years ago.  In the beginning it was full to the rafters with my stuff.  When my wife and I got married I moved into her house and stored everything.  After moving here I pulled it all out and loaded up the garage.  But several years ago I got the itch and ended up throwing away three fourths of it. Now we could move a little bit in there.

As Max got older his outdoor toys and crafts replaced everything.  Before long it was full again and Max could not bring himself to part with anything, not even his old baby toys.  This is part of his ocd.  When he was in the hospital he collected the dose cups he got twice a day, broken toys and games, and even bits of lint.  All of these ended up in the drawer beside his bed.  When we visited at night he would pull us over to show us but we had to promise not to tell anyone first; it was a secret.

Now that he is home everything goes into the garage.  When I take the trash barrels out I have to crawl over his bikes and skateboards to get to them.  In the winter it is a job getting the snow blower out after storms.  In the summer it is a struggle to get the deck chairs.

If we were to move we would need several trucks to take everything out.  Nope, been there, done that, not again!

Max needs a new bike, he practically has to squat down to ride the old one.  Of course it is three years old now.  He has been begging us for one some time.  He has even earned the money to buy it; not bad for an eight year old.  We have been telling him that to get the bike he has to first get rid of ten toys from the garage.  He balks every time we mention it.  The idea of losing anything of his no matter how small or worthless gets him very edgy.

Max is a pack rat but so are his parents.  When I was his age I believed that everything including inanimate objects could think and had emotions.  I couldn’t bear to hurt their feelings by getting rid of them.  I can’t say that Max believes this too but he has this ocd need to hoard everything.

When it finally dawned on him that he really wasn’t going to be able to get the new bike he took action.  On Sunday he opened the garage door and began removing junk.  I looked at my wife and mentioned that we only told him ten items.  She hushed me; let him keep going.

By the time he was done 90% of his possessions were piled on the sidewalk waiting for the trash man.  Not only that half the garage from front to back was empty!!  The sidewalk had sprung a wall but this didn’t last.  I had planned on putting out a sign saying “free stuff” but it wasn’t needed.  Most of the good stuff was gone overnight.

It was beyond our wildest dreams.  It definitely earned a trip to the bike store.  We went to Wal-Mart where he picked out a beautiful mountain bike for less than he had earned.  Because of the good job he did his parents threw in a brand new bike helmet.

When we got home he proudly rolled the bike into the back of the garage to stand beside mine.  Yeah right!  It stayed for all of two seconds before he shot down the street.  He has now been on it almost continuously since Sunday.  If he could he would probably sleep with it.

As far as the garage is concerned there is almost room to put a car in.  We still have the left side to do, probably this weekend.  Max has promised to weed out the rest of his junk but we’ll see what happens.  This aspect of his ocd took a holiday the other day.  Perhaps it will be ready to do the same again.