banana loaf

My kids aren't the best cleaners. Okay, so maybe their average age is 2.5. Still, anytime we want them to clean the basement or their room, or pick up the playing cards or the game pieces that they throw all over it's a big deal.

I don't want to make us sound like normal, easily irritated (at times) parents, but it's kind of irritating!!

I don't want to make Steven out to be an Ogre, but when he oversees their cleaning of the rec room in the basement, his growls could out-Ogre Shrek any day.

Okay, to be fair to him I was sort of in the next room playing FreeCell while he bickered with the kids to clean. And I may have teased him just a little when he became short with them. It's kind of cute when he comes in here to glare at me and he's trying not to smile. Then he left. I think he's teaching me a lesson. Ha.

I'll show him. I'm in the next room, blogging for your personal enjoyment while the kids are cleaning up their mountains of toys.

My secret? I hate to give away my secrets, especially when they're so underhanded, but I sort of threaten (gently, no yelling, I'm trying to prove my own point) to help clean by scooping everything into the garbage bag. I called them from the next room and told them that I was going to count to ten and then come and put whatever was left on the floor into my garbage bag. I even have one in here (oddly enough) to illustrate my point.

"One . . . (big big pause) . . . two . . . three . . . "

You should have hear the toys being fired into the toy boxes. Then when I hit ten, they beg for more time. I reluctantly agree. I wait a few minutes and then start the countdown again. And so on and so forth.

I'm a mommy. I'm supposed to be gently manipulative.

You know what else is great? My kids will gladly announce to their daddy that they're Mommy's minions. They don't even know what minions are, but they're mine.

Sometimes this gig is pretty entertaining.