I have to admit though that Fiona had tidied up all her painting stuff and it was in a pile in one place..........SnoWhite had not! SnoWhite was asleep on the sofa mid-mess.
Hands up..........I loosed a verbal tirade at her for not doing as I asked. She eventually got up, grabbed her stuff together and started to go upstairs, to which I shouted,' Do not go back to sleep' and she shouted back angrily that she would not be.
10 minutes later, the quiet from upstairs made it very obvious that she was asleep. I sent Fiona up to tell her to get her butt downstairs and to do some housework. Art work aside, the whole of the downstairs seemed to be awash with dirty clothes , dirty dishes and rubbish and not of my making. When Fiona tried to wake her up, SnoWhite's usual response was 'I am not asleep' and Fiona's answer was,'I don't think she cares, she wants you downstairs now and cleaning'.Having a flouncing princess cleaning when she would rather be sleeping is like having a time bomb ticking away. We both remained silent whilst the work got done.
Fiona was helpfulness personified.
I do not ask for much, I just want them to do the same as me.
Fill and empty a dishwasher.
Fill, turn on washing machine and wash clothes.
Empty washing machine and dry clothes.
Put clothes away.
Ironing.
Put rubbish and recycling in the bins and put the bags out.
Clean the kitchen,hall, dining room,lounge, bathrooms and Beauty's bedroom.
Do the above without being asked(most important).
If It takes me 3 hours to do the above then it should only take the 3 of us 1 hour each to do the lot!
Why should I clean up after 2 other adults(O.K Fiona may technically still be a child but as she is over 6 foot tall and bigger than me, lets not split hairs here)?And without being paid for it!
Oh yes...........the worm has turned.
Where are these OCD autistic children that you always read about?
I wrote about the Jackson family in a previous post and they had 4 boys who were somewhere on the spectrum and their house was just like mine, floors awash with clothes , toys...........you name it!
Snowhite showed up last night with a handful of leaves that she had picked to paint for her project and amongst the leaves were some catkins. I don't think I have had children bringing catkins into the house for years, that is the strangeness sometimes of having children over 3 decades, the 80's 90's & 00's. Beauty would totally not be interested in nature the same way that her sisters saw nature, remember........... Beauty eats daisies! Though she does love picking and holding fallen leaves.
I remember Anastasia and Belle picking catkins as small children in the 80's . I remember picking catkins as a child. Life with Beauty has been a lot less stressful in many ways with Beauty than it was with her sisters. No Rainbows, no ballet classes, no martial arts classes...........which brings it's own sadness too.
The weather (as a Brit I have to mention the weather frequently-it is one of the things that we do best) seems to have cheered up recently. Rain at night but sunny and bright in the day, I have even managed to almost dry a good few lines of washing in the last few days. I dry them as much as possible outside and then I finish them off in the tumble dryer and with the volume of washing that we go through in our house it does seem to save a lot of money on the electricity bills. It still surprises me how many people I see in little strappy T shirts the minute there is a little bit of sun. I went to the Doctors surgery the other morning to pick up a prescription and I remember not wanting to get out of the car because it was quite chilly and I didn't have the largest of jackets on(I think I had mis-read the weather slightly) and across from me was a young girl wearing flip-flops, jeans and a STRAPPY T SHIRT! I felt colder just looking at her!
I also don't know if it is just a phenomena of the city I live in but what is it with lads and shorts in winter and no they are not just coming from the gym. Cardiff is a university city so we have students everywhere, 24 hours Tesco on Western Avenue is opposite UWIC . Behind the store is a huge halls of residence for the University of Wales, Cardiff so whenever I go to this particular store, night or day, students are in the majority. And the lads seem to love to wear 3/4 length shorts.........even when it is snowing!I sometimes feel frostbite setting in just looking at them.
Thankfully in the summer when it is slightly warmer they do not shed all their clothes and walk around naked, well not in the shops any way!
Am I the only one whose mother said 'Ne'er cast a clout till May be out' ?
6 comments:
I sympathise totally with the cleaning issue! Karen and I regularly oversee a cleaning hour for Ben in which he - with some guidance from us - cleans his own room. Weirdly he takes real pride in keeping it clean once he's done it... only lasts a week or so, of course, but it's great while it does! Initially we get the usual round of protests. Ben's argument - misguided though it may be - seems to run along the lines of: he shouldn't have to clean anything because he's a kid whereas grownups are meant to clean things. Hmm. He'll soon learn...!
You know if I was at home I would totally help with the cleaning without being asked to... no really, don't laugh, I would! Love Nxx
Hmmm, let me see, what can I say to cheer you up? I know, I can tell you all about the 'Respite' help I've been enjoying where a delightful woman comes to my house every day, clean, tidies, beams smiles at me and tells me to 'rest.' You feel better already huh!
Best wishes
Sure helps(smiles through gritted teeth), you are very lucky. We have previously had 3 aupairs and all turned out to be mad.I would rather mess than a mad aupair.
Fridays bring a flurry of cleaning activity to our household as we prepare for helpers that arrive late in the afternoon, 3 sisters who clean for an hour and can accomplish more than I can in a whole week. In better times the boys have helped out by putting their toys away and stripping the sheets off their beds. I seem to always be running too late in the morning to keep on the boys to do that now. My oldest is the only one I can count on to follow through once I issue orders. Getting Samuel to clean is more work than doing the cleaning myself! What will I face in a few years when I have 3 teenage BOYS? I empathize with your cleaning dilemna!
My house used to look like the local discount store threw up in it. Now it looks like the local high end discount store through up in it and left a bunch of paper as well.
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