A boy and his broom

Henson loves brooms. He is 2. He has had a love for brooms for at least half his life. He is obsessed with brooms. I have watched him in restaurants become captivated by the sight of the waiter or waitress sweeping the floor around us. At home, if you bring out the broom to sweep you better not put it down or walk away from it. As soon as you do, Henson will claim it as his. Don't even bother to try and take it from him or you will have to endure him yelling at you; "Mine!" No one else is allowed to touch it or even look at it if he has the broom in his hand.

Thankfully, Henson also enjoys sweeping. He will often wander around the house with broom in hand. Although one is wise to give him a wide berth because a 2 year old wielding a full size broom can be dangerous.

For that reason, we decided we wanted to get him his own broom for his second birthday. There is only a small window of time when you can present a child with a gift like this and have them appreciate it, so we knew we had to act fast. Maggie did the shopping, and surprisingly, toddler size brooms are very hard to find. Now, I don't know if there was some sort of shortage, but Maggie wasn't able to find one at all. Perhaps brooms are the overwhelming choice of gift for those 4 and under? We had no idea. We thought for sure "the dollar store" would have some but they did not. So Maggie finally just bought an "adult sized" broom.

On his birthday, with hacksaw in hand, I sneaked out to the front porch and cut it down to his size. When we gave him his presents, the broom was a huge hit. He quickly went to work sweeping the floor. He carried it around for most of the evening and we actually thought he was going to take it to bed with him.

Recently, I left out the Swiffer floor mop and Henson quickly found it and claimed it as his. For his 3rd birthday we are thinking about getting him a janitors cart. We know this phase won't last long (as a couple of Henson's siblings appear to have a fear of brooms and mops) so we figured we might as well encourage it while we can!