The majority of last year was spent as a single parent of four while Keith was here and yon on TDYs and deployments. I realized early on that it would be a year of creativity, persuading the kids to take on more responsibilities at home and doing so with a joyful heart. Gone are the days of children too young to understand that Mom needs help. It was time to buckle down and make survival a group effort in hopes that survival mode would be enjoyable and life lessons would abound.
Chores stink. Responsibility wreaks. It's not fun. And the girls, naturally, felt this the first time I asked them to haul their own laundry from their rooms to the washer and then make the return trip to their dresser drawers. Mary Poppins really needed to pop in and give us all a spoon full of sugar and teach us the joy of snapping.
"In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap! The job's a game. And every task you undertake, becomes a piece of cake, a lark, a spree, it's very clear to see." Clearly, some magic rests with Disney and reality bites. Evelynn tried the snapping, being particularly gifted in the ability to snap her fingers with both hands. The laundry did not take care of itself. So what is a Mom to do? Make it a game, make it game... drink coffee... make it a game... more coffee......
Introducing M, head of MI6... aka Mom, aka Miranda, Mom Inspector of 6 and her agents: Evelynn (Agent 4-14), Caelan (Agent 12-11) and McKenna (Agent 6-11). Those are their birthdates, in case you were wondering.
Objectives:
1. Get laundry down the stairs and in front of the washing machine.
2. Take clean laundry to living room for M to fold.
3. Put away the stacks of folded laundry without being seen.
A highly dangerous mission, the job requires the agents to complete the tasks without M seeing it happen, so quietly and quickly (I know, perfection). This seemed to work fairly well, laundry was completed in record time. The only complaint was that M kept forgetting to use their aliases, which I did give them their proper names first, agent names second. There was one reported incident of two agents surfing down the stairs in an empty laundry basket, but even they conceded they were no super spies or a Legolas at best.
This new way of completing chores grew to cover any missions M deemed necessary for the household: toy pick up, dusting, vacuuming, etc. As the missions grew, the back story was necessary. Back story? Oh, yes. Any decent spy/agent mission includes a back story. The goal is to use large words and sound quite official. Then the day came when I asked them to help get the living room clean so that I could vacuum. The story was elaborate, driving home the point that my floors were filthy. Mutant dust particles had been gathered together and were being cloned like the Droid Army in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (points for appealing to their inner nerd and referencing Star Wars). The sheer number of particles were threatening our existence in our home. Preparations were to be made so that M could bring in the weapon... and then my story stopped... what to call a vacuum when telling an agent that the clone wars were imminent? The Great Suckness. Um, well... that's not what I intended to slip out in my attempt at conveying this great weapon of mass destruction. But that's how it goes. The Great Suckness: saving lives, one dirt clone war a day and with the help of Agents 4-14, 12-11 an 6-11. They love it and the house is clean. M's stories are becoming the difficult part. Obviously... The Great Suckness. Whaaa?
