I have an announcement to make…Avery has cleaned her room! I will sneak in there after she leaves for school and get a picture of it, I am so proud! This was not her usual shove it in the closet cleaning either; it was filling bags with clothes that do not fit and getting rid of all the junk. Her room looks amazing, I am one proud Momma!
Yesterday we took the girls out to breakfast and as we were finishing up we laid out our agenda for the day. Mark and I were heading to the grocery store and while we were gone we wanted the girls to shake out the bathroom rugs and sweep out the bathroom really well, so that I could mop the floor when I got home. We also advised Avery that since she had put off some homework over the holiday that she would need to get it done pronto. We had told her at the beginning of break that she should get it done right away. I had said to her “I do not want to be standing over you on the last day of your holiday break nagging you about getting it done!” and here I was nagging her, I was not a happy lady!
As we dropped the girls at home and headed out to the store, we had them repeat back what we had asked them to do and they did that with no problem. I smugly headed to the store quite proud of my parenting skills and thinking what a smart move it was to have them repeat back what we had said. Mark and I hurried through the grocery store, eager to get home and work on putting away the remaining Christmas décor, I was looking forward to a little relaxing and I was certain once we got home everything would be done and we would have just a small amount of things to do before we could get down to the business of hanging out.
As we walked in with the first bag of groceries, I saw Avery pop her head out of the bathroom. I really did not think anything of it at first. I headed downstairs to put some groceries in the pantry and found that the sink had over flowed due to a lint clog when the washer had poured into. “UM, WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED DOWN HERE?” “Didn’t anyone check on the laundry” I could hear people diving for cover, Mom was angry and no one wanted to face her! As I came up the stairs I saw Avery putting the broom away and it hit me. “Did you just finish sweeping the bathroom?” Avery replied “Yeah”, “What were you doing the whole time we were gone?” Did you get your homework done?” Again Avery replied “No”. Now, Mom was even angrier!
Apparently Aly and Avery sat and watched television (while my washer was spewing all over my basement floor) until they heard the garage door open and then made a run for it to get the bathroom chore done before Mark and I got in the house. Not quite the idea I had in mind when I had them repeat back what I wanted them to do a couple of hours ago. Mean while the homework was not done and I had to wipe up all the water off the basement floor. Mark jumped in and took over the swabbing of the floor while I began the verbal tongue lashing on Avery about getting the blasted homework done. Here I was doing exactly what I had told her at the beginning of break I did not want to do. I was nagging her about homework! As Mark and I talked about it, I suggested that we needed a consequence for her not doing what we had asked her to do. That’s when it hit me, her room! She has to clean her room. We had both reached our limit with it anyway and we felt that since she did not follow our directions earlier it would be a good way to teach our young teen a lesson, and get a clean bedroom out of the deal.
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