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February 6, 2007

Lost Ourselves

Being shacked up in the house due the bitter cold weather we've been having, I've gotten a bit of surfing done, as well as web work. Web work stuff is boring, don't wanna talk about it. Makes my head hurt and my eyes burn, not to mention that it also produces a relatively numb arse. But the surfing... I found this MyBlogLog site. Normally I don't sign up for stuff like that (I don't even have a My Space. But for some reason I signed up for this and so far momma likey. It is pretty fun. I've found a lot of cool sites, either interesting to read or just fun to look at. You can find me here.

Beyond surfing I've been losing my mind, clamoring at the walls trying to get away from the sound of my children pummeling each other, bickering and asking for food every five seconds. Every. Five. Seconds. I swear. I don't have the dishes done from the first snack/meal/feeding frenzy and they're asking for more.

So today, just before they got home (they got off early yet again), I put some oatmeal in the oven (got this delicious baked oatmeal recipe) and hopped in the shower. While I was in the shower the kids came home. I told them about the oatmeal. Did they help themselves to some? Of coarse not!! They made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bowls of cereal sloshing over with milk. They made, a freakin' mess.

I'm looking at the kitchen table, smeared with jelly and peanut butter. Dishes stacked in the sink. Napkins all over, hunks of bread lying around. Oh. Heck. Naw.

Everything needed to stop. I set the twins to work cleaning up the kitchen area (they had brought out markers, pencils and paper that needed to be put away). My older son I put to work with the pile of dishes, and the middle son tackled the mess he made in the bedroom since his arrival home. I wasn't looking for perfection, but come on, people. Sometimes I think that they think I'm a slave.

"How are you going to unwrap a piece of gum and throw the paper aside. Who do you THINK is going to pick that up? Am *I* supposed to pick that up? Am I your maid or something that *I'M* supposed to throw that wrapper away for you?"

Middle child threw it away as I ranted. Thank you.

I'm pretty sure I've enabled my children to be the little cretins that they are. My husband, more than myself. He likes a clean house, as do I, but I can let a dish sit for more than 10 minutes, whereas he has to scrub it immediately, giving me no time to dole out scrub duty. I can let the kids wash the dishes, whereas he'd rather do it himself so that it "gets done right" the first time.

They used to have chores. I'm going to set them up with chores again. Somewhere along the line we lost ourselves. I think it time to fix that.



Comments

Oh boy - do I hear ya on this one!!

Posted by: Melissa R. Garrett | February 12, 2007 4:30 PM