What a lovely surprise!

If you have small children, you know that getting them to do much of anything can be a battle . . .cleaning up is no exception.  I’m sure you’ve all heard that horrid song – I think Barney started the madness – “Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up.”  The song makes me want to hurl,but for my almost 2 year old, it usually does the trick.

If you have small children, you also know that giving them an order (for lack of a better term) without actually looking at them, or giving it to them while walking past to go elsewhere, is usually useless, since they will just ignore you.  Even though I KNOW this, I still do it ALL. THE. TIME.  This morning was no exception.  I was running around in my usual fashion, like a chicken with it’s head cut off, trying to get a zillion things done all at once.  I had been working on organizing the ridiculous amount of clothing that we have for the babes.  As such, the toddlers were running around playing on their own while I worked.  I came out of the room and found a complete disaster in the music/playroom.  YIKES!  As I zoomed past, I said something like “Come on, guys!  You need to clean up this mess, okay?  I’ll come back and help you in a few minutes.” and then I rushed back to my project.  I came back out a few minutes later, and was completely shocked at the sight.  You, like me, might have expected to see either the same mess, or an even bigger one.  Not this time, the area was SPOTLESS!  I was soo shocked, I almost dropped my infant!  Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but I was really shocked!  And they were even working on cleaning up the toys in the living room!  Hooray!  I of course showered them with mass amounts of praise and kisses!  Hey, I want this amazing behavior to continue!

What a lovely surprise it was, indeed!