According to my 5-year-old, there is a profound difference between superheroes and pirates.

So much so, that they may not be stored together in a ziplock baggie.

I’m not much of a boy, so I’ve never really thought about it a lot.

But I do know one thing.

Superheroes did not do this to my family room.

And so, much to my chagrin, because I can’t stand banging my head against the wall – and if cleaning up after kids isn’t banging your head against the wall, I don’t know what is — we gathered together on Sunday morning to put things up for 30 seconds before my kid started scattering them around again clean up.

And I figured, as long as we’re diving into the disaster area, we might as well do it right.

“Stop!” I said to hubs as he tossed an armload of crap into the toy box.

“Let’s put this shit stuff where it’s supposed to go for once.”

So we started actually SORTING toys.

Toy Story stuff with Toy Story stuff.

Cars with trucks.

Plastic kitchen food with what I hope is plastic kitchen food.

After about ten minutes, I noticed that Ash had started his own categories.

The kind of categories that can only come from a 5-year-old mind.

And, of course, superheroes.

So I started to add things to his organizational piles, unnoticed.

But then I put some pirate figures into the Superhero bag.

Within seconds, he found a rogue Spiderman and scampered over to toss it in the bag with 18 other various superheroes I’ve never heard of that he’s obsessed with and this is what it’s like to be the mom of boys when you come from a family of all girls.

He placed him inside, saw the pirates and said emphatically, “PIRATES???  NO!!!!!”

Then threw Captain Jack Sparrow and his two marauding comrades back on the floor where all nonsuperheroes belong.

So I made him signs for his fantastical categories.

Because I knew this was something we needed to remember.

And because I like the way he thinks.

Categories can be weird things.

I started off thinking this post was gonna be snarky.

Instead it turned out all squishy.

Oh well.

I’ll let the post be what the post wants to be.

That’s the kind of mom I am.