Sometimes, I have to wonder. My children—even as teens, or maybe especially as teens—tend to shed their belongings as they walk in the front door and through the house. The shoes are the first to come off onto the boot tray. Then the backpack, landing on the floor by the chair. The jacket is sometimes hung up, but usually ends up thrown on the back of a chair or on the table. Sweatshirt, sweaters, hat, socks, etc. As my children shed these items, they get dropped along the path. It’s a blur of doors and limbs and kids and belongings.

At the end of last week, I had just returned home from work. I emptied and put away my lunchbox, and I made my way up to my room to change from my work clothes before I made dinner. As I raised my foot to step on the first stair, I heard, “Don’t step on my shirt!”

What? Ah yes. Someone had dropped a shirt, right there in the middle of the bottom step.

Perhaps the problem is not really me stepping on the shirt. It seems, the problem might be more about the shirt being in the middle of the steps where it doesn’t belong. Just a thought.