Kids are Funny, I Tell Ya!

So, the Girl Scout troop end of year fun is at our house this weekend. That means we are in serious cleaning mode. All the piles of junk need to be sorted, trashed, recycled, re-homed or put away. The girls were both diligently working on their rooms while I tackled the kitchen.

I freely admit, I don’t like to clean. I am a surface cleaner from the word go. No shame, I know my issues. As such I am often like the kids, and get distracted. I cannot just clean for 3 hours straight. I clean a little, then stop to work on the dishes or the laundry or something else. So I was getting bored with the kitchen and switched to laundry for a bit.

Meanwhile, the Little One had found her gold LEGO ornament and pieces from a few Christmases ago. She was trying to get all the pieces back into the clear ball ornament. She asked for my help getting the pieces all apart. I am the master LEGO separator in our house. This, of course, caused the Big One to wonder where her gold LEGO ornament was. So she set off to find it. As I am folding laundry, she comes in exasperated because she cannot find hers. She hems and haws, sighs, taps her foot on the ground. All the while, I admit, I WAS ignoring her. I knew what was coming next.

“MMMMOOOOMMMMMMMMM, can you PLEASE help me find my LEGO thing?”

I said I would help in a few minutes as I kept folding the laundry that was all over my bed. She continued to sigh, stomp her foot, pick at the blanket. More deep breaths as I asked her if she checked the top of her dresser. YES. Did she check her LEGO shelves? YES. Did she check the catchall baskets on her cubby shelf thingie. YES, she had checked EVERYWHERE and the LEGOs were GONE.

Again, I am still folding laundry. In my head I am thinking that if she would HELP me fold the laundry, it would get done faster and then I could help her. But she never picks up on it, she just continues to sigh and tap her foot. So I continued sorting socks, folding PJs, etc.

Then the Little One comes in asking if I could go get her a broom because she needs to sweep BEHIND her dresser????? (Who does that??) I continued folding laundry, wondering when they will ever get to the point where they see that I am doing something they are perfectly capable of and offer to help. (trust me I’ve tried asking, hinting, directing and yelling they are not fans of folding laundry). I tell the Little One she knows where the brooms are and get it herself. Again the Big One is still staring at me, sighing and getting generally annoyed that I am not helping her find her missing LEGOs.

Again, if she would have folded a T-shirt, I might have gone a little faster or maybe even stopped folding to help her, but she insisted on just being disgusted with my pace, so I kept at a snail’s pace. It’s fun to the be the mom sometimes.

Finally I finish folding the laundry. By now the Little One has swept behind her dresser. She is disgusted with the amount of dog hair back there. So she sets her sights on the Husband’s dresser. She is on the ground with the broom, reeling in disgust at the piles of dog hair under there. As long as nobody is crawling around on my bedroom floor, they’ll never see the dog hair under there. SHEESH, kid, give me a break.

So I head into the Big One’s room. Asking again if she checked everywhere. Again, she says YEEEEESSSSSSS! I know that I will find it because that’s what I do. So now I had to decide how obnoxious to be about it. So I start in the least likely places. Asking did you look here? Did you look there? Now she was getting really ticked at me. So I started on her basket things. In the SECOND one I looked in, what do you think I found??? YEP, the LEGO thing that was NOWHERE to be found. I am amazing like that. You can be jealous.

I was feeling pretty self-righteous, I admit it. When the Little One came in with a pile of dog hair, almost as big as her head. “MMMMOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM! You need to clean better!” She exclaimed.

We are sure going to miss that child.

I’m kidding. I didn’t beat her. I simply pointed out that now that she was such an expert dog hair wrangler, it could now be added to her weekly chores. Score again for mom!