The Literal Half-Assed Job
Why is it that kids won’t listen to their parents, but the first time a relative gives an order they obey without hesitation? At least for a while anyway.
My two sisters and my mom have this effect on my daughter. They tell her to do something and she jumps in line without hesitation. I tell her to do something and she doesn’t hear me?
It’s no surprise that I occasionally call for backup when I’m tired of arguing.
A few weeks before Christmas this past year, Bre’s room was trashed once again. The last time it was clean was the result of me getting pissed off and cleaning it myself. I told her it was the last time and I wasn’t doing it again.
The trouble with that is, when her room is clean and she knows I’m not going to clean it, she’ll do everything within her power to keep her room clean.
That doesn’t seem so bad. But let me explain to you what that means. But to do that I first have to tell you what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that she’s going to pick up after herself, or put things away when she’s done with them. No, what it means is she’s going to gather whatever it is that she wants to play with and drag it into the rest of the house. Once there, she’ll play with it for a while and then proceed to abandon it wherever her location of choice was. It means that when her room is clean, the rest of the house is trashed. And then like clockwork, when I demand that she take all her crap back to her room, she throws it in the floor just inside the door, where it accumulates until her room is once again trashed. But hey, the rest of the house can stay somewhat presentable.
My youngest sister has the most pull with my daughter. I’m not entirely sure why. Bre dreads disappointing her.
She was at the house those couple weeks prior to Christmas and told Bre that she’d better have her room clean before Christmas, so she had room for all the new toys she might be getting.
Bre got all excited and ran into her room. Though the excitement didn’t last long. She was caught playing with something within minutes of disappearing.
My sister made her a deal. She told her that if she cleaned half her room before she left, she’d get a surprise.
Bre was in agreement and she closed the door and went to work. Surprisingly, for real this time.
It was getting late and my sister had to be heading home. We opened the door and peered inside. To our surprise, the room was half clean. Only not in the manner you’d expect.
Bre had picked up every last piece of discarded paper, every tiny little accessory to her Monster High toys, every random string or lost bead from the nightmarish bead maker kits she’d received in the past. And where else would it be? She piled everything on the other half of the room.
Lost for words, we stared at the half-cleaned room, unable to process if we should be happy by her literal approach, or furious that she could have done it right the first time and been nearly finished. Shaking our heads, we watched her notice us.
A toothy smile blazon across her face, she beamed up. “Do I get my surprise now?”
These are the tales of a single father but they aren’t limited to just single parents. Dammit Bre! contains many tips and tricks for dealing with your children, regardless of your situation. It was written with you in mind. Each story takes only a few short minutes to read, making it the perfect companion when you’re hiding in the pantry, sipping a juice box and hiding from the kids.
