Which brought to mind the beginning of them doing their own laundry. I hope April will read this and maybe it will help her get her kids motivated. At least maybe she'll get a good laugh out of it.
Let's go back to when my two youngest, Josh and Hayley, were in middle school, say maybe 7th and 9th grade. Josh was the older of the two. Ok, Hayley was 12 or 13 and Josh was15 or so. Certainly old enough to be learning how to do laundry.
Soooo, my kids were home from school one day, I guess it was maybe a holiday or summer, and they were driving me stark-raving crazy fussing and fighting and yelling and screaming at each other and hollering for me to referee. You know how that goes. I had had it up to my eyeballs. I decided to give them some chores to do not only as punishment but also because I needed help. They were like everybody elses' kids and liked to lay on the couch and watch TV and be waited on hand and foot. But not today!
I started doling out the chores amidst the whining and complaining from both of them and the "pore pitiful me" expressions and accusations of whose fault everything was. There were at least 4-5 laundry baskets full of clothes and towels to be washed. I explained (in a loud exasperated tone of voice) how to seperate and do the washing. Then, smart-mouth Josh said,
"I'm NOT doing laundry."
"What???? Why not???" I ask.
"BECAUSE THAT'S YOUR JOB." he replied. And I could see that Hayley concurred, and was glad that Josh had relayed that sentiment to me and she didn't have to.
Deadly silence. Steam beginning to spew out of my ears. Face turning red. In a carefully contained voice, I whispered, "not. any. more." I quickly gathered up all the quarters out of my change bowl, grabbed the Gain and Bounce sheets, ordered them both to go put all the laundry baskets in my Suburban, told them to GIT IN THE CAR, drove them up to the laundromat (only a mile away in town), and dropped them off. I handed Hayley my cell phone and said "call. me. when. you're. all. done."
I peeled out of the parking lot, very smug, with them standing there in front of the laundromat looking dumbfounded like "what just happened?" and "I can't believe she's actually doing this!" I drove home actually laughing out loud in the car! If anybody'd seen me driving down the road laughing and bouncing around in the car, they'd have thought I was nuts! Boy I thought I was MOM OF THE YEAR! I had made such a wonderful wise timely decision on how a parent should deal with this behaviour that I felt ready to write a #1 best selling child-rearing book that would rival that of James Dobson!!! Man, I was on a roll!!!!!! (applause here)
Now, I'll interrupt this enthralling story to tell you to hold on to something while I finish. You won't believe it.
I'd been home for say 15-20 minutes. I'd even called my husband to tell him what an intuitive thing I'd done with his children. He beamed over the phone and told me what a good wife and mother was I. We laughed together over this little joke. The phone rings.
"Hello", I say.
Hayley's yelling at the top of her lungs, "MOM, COME QUICK! THE LAUNDROMAT IS FLOODING, AND THERE'S WATER EVERYWHERE, AND THE MEXICAN LADIES ARE SCREAMING AND GETTING ALL THEIR CLOTHES OUT OF THE DRYERS CUZ THEY'RE AFRAID THEY ARE GOING TO GET ELECTROCUTED!!! MOM WHAT DO WE DO?????"
Oh my gosh. What have they done now? I drop everything and jump back in the car and race back up to the laundromat. Sure enough, the little Mexican ladies are scattering with their babies and laundry and yelling and fussing in Spanish about those 2 kids in the washateria. There is water running out the front door and into the parking lot.
"What happened? What did ya'll do?" I tip-toed in the door and they were both standing there in the water looking guilty and wringing their hands.
"I don't know, mom," Hayley said, near tears. "I started the machine and put the soap and quarters in like you showed me. Then the washer stopped (probably mid-cycle I thought) and I thought maybe it was through or needed some more money and so I started it again and then something happened and now there's water everywhere."
I shut off the washer, and saw on the bulletin board an emergency phone #. I called and talked to the owner and told him what happened. He arrived about 10 minutes later, madder'n a wet hen at the mess on his old lineolum floor. The entire floor of the washateria was standing in water. He shooed us out after we got all the laundry, including the dripping wet clothes already in the washer. We loaded it all up and went home. I'm still not sure if indeed the washer overflowed due to my kids, or a hose broke or something. I'll let them think it was them...
Wow - talk about backfiring. Here I was thinking I'm super-mom and in reality this whole experience has turned into a disastrous fiasco. Josh and Hayley were secretly pleased they didn't have to do laundry at the washateria and tried not to laugh on the way home. I could hear sniggering coming from the backseat. I did not want to hear a peep from anyone and they knew it. I called Tony and told him what happened later and he and I had a good laugh in private. I can surely laugh about it now.
But my kids are still doing their own laundry.
