Last night, before getting ready for bed, I told the children that today we were going to clean the house. I warned them that we were going to do bathrooms, dust, vacuum, mop, clean bedrooms. The whole house had to be cleaned before we could do anything else. I said, "Prepare yourself mentally and emotionally, because it's going to happen."
This morning, after breakfast, I said, "Ok, let's get to it. We'll start on the main floor, then work our way upstairs." Blythe got at it, but Brandt allowed a small thing I said to him to become a huge thing, and he stomped off upstairs, his actions implying that he was not going to participate in the cleaning. I went up after him, very calmly, and went to talk to him.
"You don't want to clean today, do you?" I asked.
"No!" he said.
"I don't either," I replied. "Cleaning the house isn't really fun. But the house needs attention, we all live here together, and we're all going to clean together. Please have a good attitude. If we all help, it can be done quickly, and then we can do other, funner, things."
He perked up and came down to help. Blythe and Brandt both worked diligently, quickly, and happily, and by early afternoon, the whole house was clean. The whole house! All at the same time! It was practically miraculous. I didn't feel overburdened or grouchy, I worked through laundry throughout the morning, and at bedtime, I was delighted to have our space in good shape.
It won't last long, but maybe, in a couple of weeks, we can do it again as pleasantly as it happened today.
Fingers crossed.
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