The Puddles

No, global warming hasn’t been stopped. No, peace in Israel is far from fixed. No, I haven’t figured out how to inject caffeine directly into my veins. But . . . Ben cleaned his room.  Hallelujah! (Insert chorus to Handel’s Messiah here.) After three days of prodding and threatening, he finally finished.  Mind you, his room wasn’t that bad.  Ben just thought, “Why bother?” He is already not allowed to go anywhere or see anyone because of his medical condition.  I have threatened to not feed him his meals, but I never followed through on that threat.  (Somehow not feeding a boy who is recovering from heart surgery seemed really cruel.) I made him stay in his room all day yesterday except for meals and he still didn’t finish.  He has about six toys on his floor.  That’s it.  But those six toys have been there forever.  He just refuses.  He has hit a brick wall and won’t climb over!

So what did I do to fix this dilemma . . . I asked a room full of seasoned mothers what to do. (I saw them at church while I was dropping off the girls for Sunday school.) I had run out of ideas, and this was fight that I wasn’t willing to back down on.  So, one mother suggested that I tell him that if he doesn’t clean his room by (insert time deadline here) that I would throw away everything left on the floor.  I thought that it was a great idea that didn’t involve starving my child, so I tried it.  I took a garbage bag to his room and hung it on the doorknob.  Talk about motivation!  Let’s just say I can see the floor again.

Alas, I fought the good fight and won.  In 10 years I may look back on this battle and laugh. But today and in this week it seems very important to me.  Maybe I’ve been in this house and with these children a little too long without adult conversation.  I think I might need a sanity break.  But don’t get me wrong . . . in the end I don’t mind the insanity.  I love being a mom to my puddles, even if they are being disagreeable.