Tuesday, August 25, 2009

And that was just the morning

First, the cleaning service - whose office can never tell me what time they will arrive, although it tends to be mid to late morning - actually woke us up this morning.

Will and I jumped out of bed, passed my husband a robe so he could move modestly from the shower to the bedroom, and holed ourselves up in the basement to watch Shrek. All we had to eat was one nutrigrain jam bar between us.

As much as I detest cleaning the house, and as terrible as I am at it, I am considering breaking up with "the mawlies" as Will calls them. They were in and out in just over an hour, and although the house is passably clean, I don't think it's clean enough for what they charge. Really, I just need a regular cleaning lady, but I'm too paranoid to bring someone into my house from a kijiji ad, and I'm having a hell of a time trying to find a referral.

Next was the battle over going upstairs so Mama could take a much-needed shower. In the midst of the cajoling (mine) and refusing (hers), she hit me. We had a very serious talk about hitting, and Will was informed that if she hit Mama again she was going into time-out.

There was more cajoling and threatening (both mine). It has recently dawned on me that my now standard "If you do not come here by the time I count to three I will bring you here myself" probably won't work when she's 9, but I'm not sure how to adapt my arsenal of consequences, especially when we are trying to just. get. moving. But that was cut short when halfway up the stairs she hit me again, so into time-out we went.

After that detour, I actually got a shower (with Will in tow), and all was well until we got dressed and were both suddenly ravenous and miserable. Will couldn't fathom that this horrible feeling was hunger and refused all offers of food. My fuse was even shorter than usual until I realized that something in our stomachs would make us both calm down.

A little apple juice gave Will enough sugar for her to articulate a desire for "peanut butter jam, please." That gave me enough time to reheat some spinach lasagna for myself.

A walk around the block led to nap time and finally - finally - a cup of coffee.

The end.

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