The Puddles

The mistake . . . letting all of the neighborhood kids come over and attempting to keep working all at the same time.  Now the doors to my office were open and I did make periodic visit outside of the office to tend to the needs of all of the children.  I counseled the fights and fed the hungry and found the occasional lost toy, but I neglected to command that the kids clean up their mess before they left.  And the mess was extensive.  Every room that they were in was a disaster. Food wrappers hid in the playroom, all of the dress up clothes scattered on the floor, and 80% of the barbies were piled into the Barbie house (around 22 of them) along with all of their accessories. Wow what a mess!  Beside the fact that all of our living room furniture was moved out of our living room and stacked in other rooms. I walked out of my office at one point to find two kids hiding behind the cushionless couch that was standing on its end while shoved into the corner of the entryway.  Serious disaster. I should have said no to “Can so and so come over to play?” But my need to not have conflict with my children so that I could get work done led to one very bad decision.  I said yes.  Have I learned my lesson? Yes.  Have my children?  I hope so.  They complained and whined all day about all of the work that they had to do and I finally had it and told them that they needed to train their friends to clean up after themselves if they didn’t want to spend all of Saturday cleaning. And not to place all of the blame on others. My children are/were/will continue to be huge contributors to the disaster with their rooms.  And I am greatly to blame too.  Most days I am willing to say no to them, but there are times that I have no desire for a fight.  But I am the parent, so suck it up Katherine and parent!!