Cleaning

Right now, I am upstairs, in my room, sitting at the computer. I was about the fold the laundry, but as I listened to the boys downstairs I wanted to write a bit about them and how the play together so when I am old and gray I can read this and laugh.

It all started out with buying the fabric. too cute. perfect for curtains in the boy's room. Oh and wouldn't it be so cute to paint the wall a nice pale dusty blue? Yep. So over the past few days I have painted their room, made curtains, pillows, painted a kids table and chairs, frames, and letters for the wall. Busy few days. Today I finally got the bedding I wanted for their beds and was very excited to put the whole room together. However, being the boys that they are their room was a complete mess. I wasn't about to clean myself for the 100th time, so I told them they HAD to clean it or else. An hour went by, no cleaning. 2 hours, no cleaning. Finally as they played in the blankets rolling down the stairs and jumping off the couch downstairs, I began to clean their room.

They came in and out getting teddy bears pillows, and who knows what else to play with in the couches. I kept reminding them that were supposed to be helping me clean and would they please pick up those toys. THey ignored me. As you can guess, trouble was coming. I finished putting their room together, bedsets and all and called them up. Then I told them that I was very disappointed with their choice to not clean or help me and that they were definitely going to be punished by sitting in their beds for the remainder of the afternoon. They got in their beds, I gave them each a book to look at and went on with some chores. They began to once again goof off in their beds and I really didn't want them to wake Sophie up from her nap so I went to their room and told them that if they would rather clean the entire kitchen and do the dishes, then they wouldn't have to sit all afternoon in their beds.

They thought that was a good idea. They did the dishes quickly enough and were very good about rinsing all the dirty dishes out and loaded up the dishwasher nicely. Then it was on to sweeping and mopping the floors. Thy were excited about that. they shook out all the rugs and I gave them each a broom to sweep with. Then I went back upstairs to get come laundry done.

As I listened to them work together I couldn't help but just laugh. I heard them "racing across the kitchen floor", calling out "ready, set go!" "foul! that was a foul!" "time out time out" "okay let's get to work." then smack smack smack with the brooms (I'm pretty sure they were sword fighting) Harrison laughing "that was funny!" Both of them singing, "we are the cleaning boys! cleaning boys cleaning boys!"

Then they told me they were all done sweeping and it was time to mop. Now the real fun has begun. I'm not sure what is going on down there, but there is endless laughter, James saying "this is slippery!" And Harrison saying "hey, you got my head! now i have to get more underwears!" Why he needs more underwears because James got his head is beyond me. I'm sure they are making more mess at his point than cleaning, but it is all tile, so I am not too worried about it. I just love hearing them laugh together, "work" together and just being brothers. Harrison just pranced down the stairs in a fresh pair of underwears, and as I watched him walk back into the kitchen he slipped and landed right on his bum. I think I am going to give them each a towel now to dry that floor up for us. :)

Kids. How can you not love them?