1. I was cleaning cleaning cleaning today. We are going out of town this weekend, and I have discovered that the post-vacation bummer is slightly lessened by returning to a spotless house. A clean house makes your return to the mundane a little harder to hate.
Franny whooshed around after me, and offered to help me clean.
“Okay,” I said. “But I need really good listening ears. You have not been the greatest listener this week.”
“I promise I will listen, Mom.”
“Well, I think I will teach you how to scrub the toilet first,” I said.
“YAY! I get to scrub the TOILET!” Franny said.
Later, I was getting ready to sweep the dust bunnies out of the bedrooms, so I asked her to move stuff off the floor, like the laundry hamper and a couple of Strudel’s toys.
“But don’t move the little rugs,” I finished, “because I’ll vacuum them.”
“Okay, Mom.”
As she went in to the room I could see her pause. The look on her face said What did that lady say?
“What did you say to move, Mom?”
“Everything BUT the rugs.”
A couple of minutes later I peeked in and saw her moving the rugs around.
“What are you doing?” I asked uselessly. I could see what she was doing.
“Moving the rugs,” Franny replied, with a hint of, “Duh, Mom.”
“You know what? I think I will clean by myself today.”
If I said to her, “Don’t go near the edge of that cliff over there,” she’d run towards it going, “What cliff? I don’t see a…AAAAAAAAAHHH!” What a space monkey. It’s like living with her dad all over again, only she has a prayer of growing out of it. It’s probably a good thing we are not visiting the Swiss Alps or a place with shark-infested waters this weekend. “What sharks? AAAAAH!!!”