Day Four of the Great Cleaning Strike of 2006

This is x-posted to my LJ, MySpace, and my blog on Blogger, if anyone cares. I don't generally like to be so lazy, but this warrants sharing on a broader scope.

Muse and Dream (our two eldest daughters) have entered into a cleaning strike. It all started innocently enough, with me asking them to "clean up the damn room already" and they were all "no" and I was all "get cracking" and then they did it, it was done, and they were free to go about their lives....

Until I moved a dresser in their room to allow the closet door to open easier, and I found that a gazillion (yes Mr. Bush, that is larger than a Brazillian) pieces of toys and general debris were shoved into the crevice behind it.

"Um.......girls?"
"We didn't do it!"
"It is your room....who else could have done it?" (I rolled my eyes here)
"Our brother did it.."
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not not not!"

At this point I dissolved into a puddle of tantrum and kicked my legs until they cleaned the room and made me a nice relazing mug of tea.

Ha.

It was really just a small pile, perhaps twenty or so items. I explained that they could probably clean it easily and without much further ado, and then life's fun would continue on uninterrupted. The alternative, if they refused to do this, was to stay in the room until it was cleaned....as long as it took. Thinking this was adequate, I turned on my heel and went downstairs to check if any crack coffee was still in the pot.
There wasn't.

"We aren't doing it!" I heard in a chorus of small voices coming down the stairs. "EVER!"

Four days have passed now, and the room is yet to be cleaned. They have stuck to their guns, refusing not only to clean up the small mess, but have since pulled out more.

Putting away laundry has become a dangerous task, what with the picket lines and mountains of plastic and stuffed animals blocking my way. They are not moved by my claims that there are wonderful things to do outside, computer games to play, museums to visit....for Bob's sake, Riverscape to go to!

Somehow all my discussions about peaceful protests and sticking up for what you believe have sunk in.....TO MY DETRIMENT!!! (it isn't the first time)

*sigh*

Apparently, I am the "Man," the "System," the "Powers That Be."

Fuck.

Shameless Plug (for a good company!)

Its Summer Clearance Time!!!!

This is different from the normal clearance sale at NFB, in the sense that these are all HABA items that are no longer going to be carried by us at NFB.

Soooooooo......If you want to place an order for the HABA Summer Clearance Sale, you have until MIDNIGHT JULY 9th to get it in. After that, all the items on this list are discontinued and unavailable FOREVER!

The link to the sale:

CLEARANCE SALE

How do you place an order, you ask? Simply go to www.anturalfamilyboutique.com, and look for the Summer Clearance Sale in the public shopping cart so you can place the order online. If you are local to me, party shipping will apply (since I am placing my own order), otherwise it will be a nominal amount more if you live too far away for me to drop off your order in person.

Jesus-Struck

Our eldest daughter has been born again. A mere six years of age, she has seen the error of her ways and is now choosing the path of the righteous, leaving us, her bewildered parents, shaking our heads in the direction of the sky.

Personally, I blame this all on her visit to her grandparents church, one of those humongous modern ones that resemble monolithic shopping malls more than houses of God. She spent one measly morning in a youth group singing songs/doing crafts/eating pretzels for Jesus, and now she thinks he is quite special.

I learned over discussion at the dinner table that she had decided "Jesus was her boyfriend" and theat she "had crush on him." Um, come again? I mean, not that I want to squelch her heartfelt yearnings for indoctrination into the Christian Church (merely on resepct for her autonomy, mind you), but this borders on the ridiculous. Boyfriend? Crush? Need I even mention her comment that in his picture on the church walls he was kind of "cute"?

Okay, I will concede, Jesus is portrayed as a bit, well, attractive. Those deep blue eyes gazing liquidly out, beckoning us in to his embrace. Long flowing hair wisping over his shoulders....and that jawline! It would stand to reason (in my anthropological rationalizing, anyhow) that he is depicted that way in order to increase female turn-out to services, because after all, churches need people to attend to stay in business. Ditto for the reason why the anglicized churches make him out to be fair-skinned and blue-eyed, even though he was born in the middle east.

Far be it from me to criticize her blossoming religious views. If she thinks Jesus is hot, that is her business. I am having horrible visions of her becoming a "bride of Christ" in the future, but I will try to limit my mockery to laughing behind my hands with my husband as we listen to her spin fluffy sugar-coated dreams of what her babies with Jesus (grandsons of God, don't you know?) would look like as she writes his name in pink gel-pen on her notebooks.

Maybe we should be a TV dinner family. These family discussions are getting a bit hairy.