This evening I asked my eleven year old daughter, Emily, to sweep the floor. A fair and simplistic contribution to the household, I believe. After a few sighs and groans, she gets the broom and dust pan and sets to work. I try not to be a nag, despite my OCD and control freak tendencies, but I did tell her she should move her brother's toys and her flip flops from the area she was sweeping to make it easier. She mumbles "okay" and continues sweeping around those items."Emily! Pick the stuff up and move it out of your way."
Apparently to an eleven year old "pick the stuff up" means to kick it across the room, scattering the dirt (mainly cracker crumbs from my toddler) along with it. Still, I remain calm...okay, kind of calm.
"Emily! Now you have an even bigger mess to clean up."
"Ew, I have dirt on my feet now!"
"Maybe if you had picked the stuff up instead of kicking it..."
"You're the housewife. Why am I doing your job?"
"Emily, if this is any indication of what the rest of your preteen and teen years are going to be like, you may not survive."
Ahhh, I love my children. All three of them. They are all so different. So precious. So perfect. At certain moments, it's a little harder to remember that. Sometimes they take on a personality more reminiscent of devils than darlings, but I still love them.
My two year old, Jacen, loves to sweep. I hand him the broom and dust pan and he has a terrific time! So terrific, in fact, that when I go to "help" him he produces a death clinch on the broom handle and screams like I am trying to take his soul.
The floors here stay dirty a lot.
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