Dollhouses, Horseshoes, and Featherdusters, Oh My!

I'm writing this under duress, in a hurry, while hiding, in the middle of a sneezing fit (ever tried to hide while you're sneezing?).
  

I am being pelted with incessant hints and questions about lunch -- what's for lunch?  when's lunch?  is it almost lunch?  are you getting hungry for lunch?

What's with the sudden undue interest in lunch?  It represents a respite from the morning.  It will mean we have come to a common understanding of things.  It will mean -- the children have finished cleaning their rooms.  

It all started when I went into my son's room yesterday and had to step over last week's church outfit to reach the clock.  That was it.  No more gentle hints.  No more suggestions.  No more "personal space" or individualism.  So I declared today the "cleaning of the rooms day." We usually have a very thorough, very formal "cleaning of the rooms day" somewhere right before the start of the school year.  Floor bound dress clothing moved it up a few days.

The kids wanted to do it themselves.  Great.  It's not like my own room couldn't use a dusting and fluffing.  We all went to our respective rooms -- me to my room, my son to his room, my daughter, who is not old enough to have enough domain over her bedroom to have it messy, was charged with cleaning up the common play/hobby room upstairs.  Most of the tiny things on the floor belong to her dollhouse anyway.

Ten minutes into the whole operation came a terrible crash, heard throughout the house.  Nothing has been the same since.  It seems my daughter thought she'd start with her brother's things and knocked over a plant stand, sending plants and dirt all over the room.  Medium-sized job now turned into huge job with angry undertones.  Assumptions were made, indictments issued, and warnings distributed.  

We're all back to our own rooms now -- but anger is simmering, feelings are hurting, and the clock is ticking.  I suspect stomachs are rumbling -- maybe there is something to this lunch thing, but . . . 

My son keeps interrupting me to tell me he's finished.  Must I really keep stopping to point out that clothes hangers don't really belong on the floor?  Must I really define what I mean by "dust all the flat surfaces?"  Do I really need to specifically point out the horseshoe in the middle of the floor?  

I now have the opposite problem with my daughter.  She won't come and ask me anything.  She's been spoken to harshly and will now use her (rather questionable) judgment rather than come ask me for any guidance.  She knows I am much more apt to throw it out than find a place for the 900th dollhouse chair found on the floor.  Heaven knows what kind of decisions are being made in there.

But I just realized how dusty my own bedroom is and am as focused as a laser.  Dollhouse chairs be damned -- let the six year old throw you in with the Legos never to be found again -- have you seen how dusty my nightstand is?!??!!!!  If only I could string together more than 3 consecutive minutes of cleaning.

 

Well, time's up.  I've been located here at the computer . . . it seems my son once again thinks he's finished.  Wanna bet that horseshoe is still in the middle of his floor?  (Do you realize we don't even own a horse?)  And my daughter may have dug a tunnel to China by now . . . and if she thinks she's going anywhere before she finishes cleaning that room . . .

 

Wish us luck, we'll need it!