When I got up this morning, I walked into my kitchen. There were bowls strewn from one end of my counter to the other, including in my formerly shiny sink. There was jelly and grated cheese stuck to my freshly-scrubbed counter. Once I got the mess cleaned up, I headed into depths of the house to gather a load of laundry. I wanted to wash a load of whites because I had treated stains on a couple of items yesterday, but there wasn’t a full load (*gasp*) of whites between the hallway hamper and my bedroom, so I went in to scour the kids’ rooms to complete my load.
When I went through Mercedes’ room, I found a folded towel on the floor. It was soaked. And it reeked. I couldn’t believe it. It was nearly saturated with urine! WTF?!? I started thinking, “Do I need to call a physician or a psychiatrist?” I decided to wait until I picked her up from school to find out what on earth was going through her twisted little head. In the meantime, after nearly killing myself trying to GET to the laundry, I strung yarn all over her room, cordoning off several small sections that she could take one at a time.
When I picked Mercedes up, I told her we needed to talk, and described the scene I’d found in her bedroom. She explained that my dad wouldn’t get out of the bathroom, and Corey had already yelled at her once for waking us up the day (!) it happened, and she couldn’t think of anything else to do. Well, at least that KIND of made sense, but I told her that he was annoyed for being woken up over something that could wait, and if she needs to use the bathroom, she’s just going to have to take the risk. I brought up the issue with the kitchen to both her and Alex, saying that I’d really worked hard to get it clean in the first place, and I’d had to clean it again after dinner last night, and waking up to the WRECK that was my kitchen really upset me. She asked why I didn’t just leave it for her and Alex to clean up. I told her that I didn’t want to look at that mess after putting all that work into cleaning my kitchen. After that, I dropped the subject. I went on to tell her what I’d done with sectioning her room, and she got all huffy with me, saying, “Well, I’d rather do it my way, it works better for me.”
My response was that it was NOT working for her, or it would be done, and she WILL do it my way, and that’s the end of it. I was pissed. I did that to make it easier for her, and less overwhelming, because her room is totally wrecked. I told her that I didn’t want the sections done all in one day, in fact, I discouraged it. I just want her room done in a reasonable amount of time, without her getting angry and frustrated that there’s so much to do.
She suddenly thought I was asking too much, and that I need to slow down on the housework, “put down the broom and scrubby” was how she put it. I finally explained to her that I don’t want to slow down on the housework, that I’m really only doing a few things every day. I told her that I’m working towards creating new habits for at least myself, if not the rest of the family, to make our home nicer even when I go back to work. I told her how happy it was making me, to see all the progress we’ve made. I even explained that our house was embarrassing me before, and that I didn’t want people coming over, or her friends or Alex’s friends spending the night, for fear of what they’d think of me, letting my house be so DIRTY.
She told me she didn’t know I felt like that, and she seems to understand a little better now. She cleaned the first section of her room and I vacuumed it for her. We ate dinner together, and after Corey went to work, Mercedes, Alex, and I played a game of Life, and all is well in the Hamilton Hamlet.
