The Gene That Skipped A Generation

I like to have a neat and clean house.  I, however, do  not like to do things that I have to do to keep that house neat and clean, yet I do it anyway.  You see I was raised by Ann Taylor.  A woman who not only likes things to be neat, clean and orderly, but ENJOYS doing the cleaning and the organizing.  Yeah.  I know.  Crazy, right?

 My mother LOVES to clean.  I mean she really does.  When she's mad, she cleans, when she's nervous she cleans, when she's excited or happy...well you get where I'm going here.  It's her meditation of sorts.  We always like to hear the story of how she was up in the middle of the night before she and my dad got married scrubbing the floors of her mother's house. See what I mean? 

 When she and my dad came for Christmas this past year, I gave her the green light to clean out whatever she wanted, while Andy and I went to get massages.  You would have thought I handed her a giant Publisher's Clearing House check.  She was so excited.  And here is the even crazier part.  She is so damn fast.  In the three hours Andy and I were gone, she had cleaned out my pantry, kitchen drawers, cabinets in the bathroom and the laundry room and still had time to make a home cooked meal with pie for dessert, while doing a fun craft with the girls.  THREE HOURS!!  I can't even change all the sheets on the beds in that amount of time!  I just don't get it.  I swear there is a clone of her she hides somewhere. 

It is unfortunate that I did not get this love for cleaning gene.  I would rather give birth again than clean out someone else's kitchen, let alone my own.  I'm assuming it skips a generation, because as far as I know, my sisters are not so fond of doing the actual work it takes to get things to where they like them to be either.  We all bitch about cleaning and clutter on a daily basis.  There is one girl, however, who does seem to be a little more like her Nona, (my mom)  in my house.  My little Lana.

The day that my mom cleaned out all of those things in my house, Lana was right there to help her out.  WILLINGLY.  One of Lana's favorite things to do is clean out her closet.  I'm not kidding.  She will come to me on a random Thursday afternoon and ask if she can clean out her closet.  Ummmm....let me think about that a minute....Hells yeah!  Okay well maybe I leave the "hell" part out but you get it.  And she will not just reorganize things.  No, no.  She will take every last shoe out of that closet, dust bust any dirt and yuckiness left behind and put them all back in very neat pairs and rows.  Amazing.  Again -ALL ON HER OWN.  Now this is not something I have ever taught her or she's learned from her big sister.  Definitely not from Sonya.  Sonya is completely opposite.  Sonya hates to clean and organize and to be quite honest, doesn't understand why that pile of papers building on her desk since last August just can't stay there.  What?  It's her desk.  Those papers aren't bothering anyone. Sometimes she doesn't even see the clutter and mess I point out to her in her room.  

You think I'm exaggerating?  The child is thisclose to the Hoarders people coming in and taking over her room.  I finally decided at the beginning of the summer to try and put a stop to it.  As much as I wanted to be on TV at one point in my life, I don't want it to be because my daughter can't leave her apartment due to the newspapers piled up in front of her door.   I knew I had to teach her how to clean things out, and not just do it for her like I have in the past.  I had to teach her the ways of Ann Taylor, since she wasn't born with it like her sister. 

I set aside a day for us to clean out her room at the beginning of June.   Silly me thought it would take only a day to clean her entire room.  I had forgotten just how much crap she keeps.  It ended up taking us over a two week period.  Not every day mind you, but a day here and there.  I would say 4 1/2 days total.  I had to break it up for her, because you would have thought I told her, "Time to hang you upside down by your toenails for four hours!" the way she moaned and carried on.  Everyday we cleaned out a  different part of the room.  Bookshelves were one day, closet and under the bed another, and the desk needed a full day of love.  In the end we had three garbage bags of crap and two of things to be given away.  The good part was she LIKED  how her room looked after all was said and done.  She loved how neat it was and how everything had a place.  It was something she begrudgingly admitted to me of course, but admitted nonetheless.  Of course that did not stop her from immediately not putting things away in the right place just two days later.  Baby steps.  

Lana, however, is the kid who had a breakdown three weeks ago, because her clothes drawers were a mess and GG doesn't keep them neat after she fixes them and how is she supposed to put clothes away when they are always messy and what's the point of fixing it if GG messes them up again???  This was the exact thing she said to me.  Oh do I feel her pain.  Yet she turned around and organized them again anyway.  

So on Monday this week I told the girls we were cleaning the house.  My in-laws were coming on Tuesday and I've been wanting to clean out Lana and Georgia's room this summer, but just haven't had time.  No surprise since this is the first you're hearing from me in about a month.  Sonya immediately started whining and complaining, because she didn't want to.  Her desk was spiraling out of control again, but since we had just recently cleaned everything out, I knew it wouldn't take long to get it back to where it was.  Lana was excited and ready to get started.  Georgia falls somewhere in the middle right now.  She wants to be with Lana on this because they are so close, but she's not much for the hard work so she chose to pick a fight with Lana instead.  I ended up banning her from the room so we could get some work done.  She kinda got out of doing most of the work, which at this juncture was fine with me.  I will work on her next summer.   

Lana helped me clean out the toy box and then did the entire closet as she always does.  After her initial complaint fest, Sonya went into her room and did her desk all on her own.  She was even proud of it! It looks like I might have taught her something useful!  Those are always great moments when you realize that they took something from what you were trying to teach them.  I was so proud of her. I'm also so grateful that I have Lana who won't fight me on doing these things and in fact enjoys them.  

Later that night at dinner I commended everyone on the great job they did helping me out that day.  I said how much I appreciated them chipping in to do all that work, how great everything looked, and how impressed their grandparents would be.   Then I said something to Sonya about it not being all that bad to do the work if the final product looks so good like her clean desk.  She admitted I was right, but also said she still hated doing it.  

"I'm not like Lana, mom," she told me.  "She LIKES to do that stuff.  Lana has the gift of Nona."

Yes, I guess she does have the gift of Nona.  Which is good news for me because I can look forward to organized kitchen cabinets and closets in just a few short years without having to do the work myself.  And with the way Lana gets angry and upset, she may just have a career in cleaning out other people's crap.  Thanks for passing on your "gift" to my daughter mom!

Sad to Say Goodbye

We are halfway through our vacation now.  This morning we left my parents' place and made the 3 hour drive across the state of Florida to visit with my in-laws.  I can't believe it's half over already.  We all had a blast with Nona and Grampy.  Every day was filled with fun things like the water park, Lion Country Safari, the beach with a trip to the pool thrown in just about every day.  The weather has been cooperative and we've had gorgeous days so far.  I am so appreciative to my parents who made everything fun, and my mom who helped us with the girls so much, I actually felt like I was on vacation!  I am looking forward to the next few days too.  They promise to be filled with fun times celebrating Medz Papa's birthday and visiting with Andy's brother, David, his wife, Brenda and their kids, Brigid and Moira.  It will be great for the girls to visit with their cousins.  I just wanted to check in, give a shout out and share a little Lana story. 


 Yesterday, we came back from the beach at my parents house and went to their shower with the girls where we dumped out a quarter of the beach from their swimsuits.  As I was showering with them later, Lana was working hard to get all the sand, piled in the shower, to go down the drain.  I told her not to worry about it.  Then I  jokingly told her we needed to leave it so Nona would have something to do the next day. 


"Why do we need to leave something for Nona to do?" She asked confused.  


"Because she's going to be sad that we are gone," I tried to explain.


I knew after having all  of us there for four and a half days, my mom was going to be upset to see us go.  On top of that she doesn't have as much to do during the summer, since she is a school teacher and off right now. Plus my father would be working all day with a business dinner that night.  He wasn't going to be home until much later.  I knew my emotional mom, would have a rough time after we left, and when she is sad, angry, frustrated, nervous, or any one of a number of emotions, she gets through it by cleaning.  When I was a kid and would come home from school to unnecessary house cleaning, I knew to steer clear of my mom.   I was pretty sure by the time my dad got home on Monday night the house would be sparkling and smelling of Pinesol.  


"So she needs stuff to do?" Lana asked, still not clear on what I was getting at.


"Yeah, it will help her to keep her mind off of us being gone if she has things to clean, like the sand in the shower,"  I honestly did not intend for my offhanded comment to create this much conversation.  Lana kind of shrugged it off.  Then, after our shower, she told me that she wanted to make a picture for Nona so she wouldn't be sad.  So sweet.  


The girls spent almost the entire morning with my mom.  Eventually we had to leave, so we loaded up the car and headed out.  About fifteen minutes down the road, Lana said to me,


"Mommy?"


"Yes, Lana?"


"Did we leave something for Nona to do?" She asked concerned.  


I giggled then asked, "Are you worried that she's going to be sad?"


She nodded her head.


 "Don't worry Lana" I told her.  "She might be sad, but you guys left enough of a mess for her to clean up so hopefully that will keep her busy for the day."  Or in my mom's case, it might have kept her busy for about two hours.  


Thanks for the hospitality Mom and Dad!  We had a fantastic time!!  

Sink, Swim or Worse?

This past weekend, Nona and Grampy- my parents- came for a visit.  It was a good time of year to have them, because I don't think they've ever spent Halloween with us.  Even though they are not here for trick or treat today, they were able to be around for the girls school parties, costume parades, and harvest festival.  They were also here when the girls carved their pumpkins.  Truthfully, they were here for all the fun parts.  Tonight is going to be a blur of walking around getting candy, trying to keep the girls from eating ALL of the candy and then fighting them to go to bed because they are so hyped up on all that candy.  So much fun, Halloween! Hmm, now that I think about it, perhaps their plan was to be gone for that part all along.  Anyway, Saturday night before the pumpkins were carved, my first grade teacher mom decided to do a little science with the girls.


She took one of our pumpkins and had the girls guess the weight of it, which they were all way off on.  I'm pretty sure there is no way to buy a 35 pound pumpkin from the grocery store for $5, no matter how good my Ralph's Club discount is.  After they all made a guess, my mom weighed the pumpkin on our scale and then weighed each of the girls.  I think this made the idea of weight a bit clearer.  The next thing they did was play "sink or float".  It is just as it sounds.  She filled the sink with water and then went around the kitchen finding items to throw in the water.  The girls had to guess if each item would sink or float and see who was right.  Eventually, they worked their way up to the pumpkin.  It's a great experiment to do with kids over three.  


The girls loved it and would probably still be throwing things in the water, if my mom didn't pull the plug on the sink.  They especially loved guessing what each thing would do.  Sonya started finding things of her own to put in the water and came over with a crayon.  My mom held it up and asked each of them, 


"Sink or float?"


"Float," answered Sonya.


"Fwaot," said Georgia.


My mom turned to Lana with the crayon in her hand.  Lana looked at it, thought for a minute and said,


"Drown."


Huh.  That was a little morbid.  I didn't even know she knew the word drown or what it meant.  Perhaps it's all those Halloween specials she's been watching this time of year.  Although, I don't remember anyone drowning in, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."


Lucky for the crayon, we saved it before it met it's demise.