Things are moving along at a rapid pace at our house. Trying to get ready for the boys +1 homecoming. But the tasks at hand are not easy ones. My poor house looks like that - a poor house. We have so many things that need painted, tossed, scrubbed, realigned, moved, hung, taken down, removed, dusted, washed. I'm already worn out just from reading what needs to be done! Plus I'm running out of verbs.
For instance - I got beat up by my house on Saturday. Scrubbing, dragging, pushing, pulling, tossing, more scrubbing, twisting, turning. If anything falls on the floor it will just have to stay there until I can bend over or squat without pains and/or muscle cramps to pick it up. It even hurts to sit! And I get to continue doing all this until I've had enough - or the house surrenders!
I just know that my kids will appreciate all my efforts when they walk in the house, go straight to the stove and say, “Wow, Mom! Good job!!!”
My BFF told me that now that it’s all sparkly and pretty that I can’t cook. Okay. Fine by me. On most days that's a deal that I'm happy to live with.
To help move the work along - I asked Sara if she’d lcome over and help me out. She's really good at organizing, tossing, etc. - skills that I'm sorely lacking in. I also asked her to bring the kids over so that they could earn some $ to spend during spring break.
About two minutes after their arrival - it went downhill from there.
I asked them to clean up the yard (pickup sticks & various tree parts, sweep the walk, pick up trash, etc. so that it would be done for Poppy. One of the neighborhood kids came over and promptly dropped a couple of F-bombs while conversing with the kids. Sara was livid. Ashley said in a VERY loud voice – “What did you just say?!?!” Of course he didn’t repeat it but Sara jumped on him.
I went out & told him basically that my house was a rated “PG” house and that kind of language wasn’t allowed. He apologized (though did look a little puzzled over the fuss). And then the kids started visiting - and playing.
Toby was dug up part of the yard. Then got stuck up a tree. Ashley came in to get her fishing rod. After trying her hand at casting the hook got caught up in another tree. The kids dropped orange peels in the front yard. Yeah – pretty much downhill.
I paid them because they did do some good work. But as they were all leaving - I saw what a mess they made in the process. Particularly after they’d picked up a lot of tree parts and Jonathan ended up emptying the whole bag in the middle of the front yard. It took me a while to figure why he did that.
He had taken the trash can to the curb because his mom told him to do so. He didn't know that she meant just the trash big.
After she got on to him for that - she tells him to empty the bag. Which he did - right in the middle of the front yard.. I think his mom was giving him too many directions at once without a whole lot of explanation. Poor guy . . .
I had a little meeting with them afterwards. Told them that this was supposed to be helping Jim (“Poppy”). But that they did a shoddy job. I told them that Poppy works hard for his money, I did, their Mom did and that they should work just as hard as we do. I even asked them how they felt about the work they did. “Not good.”
When Jim gets a closer look at the front lawn he’ll probably find that they weren’t as helpful as I’d hoped. Note to self: do NOT let Toby walk around the yard with any kind of tool and/or yard work implement or his knees will get ripped off and stapled to the back of his legs . . . .
I asked Sara how the kids were on the way home and she said that she yelled at them all the way home (would have loved to been a bug in that car!). They felt bad and gave her the $$ that I paid them. I think they got the point of the conversation. Well, probably Jonathan & Ashley got it. With Toby – not so much. Sara volunteered to come back over w/ Ashley and they’d both help me. We’ll see. Hopefully I’ll pretty much have it all under control by Saturday afternoon.
Wait – who am I kidding?
A little guilt is a good thing at times.
