Deep Cleaning

That's today's task. We're taking a break at the moment, having cleaned out behind the kids' bookshelves and done their beds and started on the rest of their room (since we pulled a bunch of junk out from behind that bookshelf, there's more to clean now than there was before). The plan was thusly: I work on laundry and the master bedroom and the kitchen/dining/living areas, the kids do their bedroom and the guest bathroom, and it's going pretty well, although it's in the breaking-eggs stage of this omelet.

Abby is disappointed that her friends aren't available to help (Kiki is out of town for the holidays and Ash & Tris have family in town for the holidays. The other regular is at day camp). Abby is fretting that she won't have time to finish it all so I told her it does not all have to be done today. I have Thursday morning to work on stuff (most likely gift-wrapping and general tidying), and we have all day Friday as well. So I think she's freaking out over very little. She is her mother's daughter after all. She went off to see if one of the less-frequent visitors wants to "earn Treasure Box and Christmas cookies" by helping clean up. This kid is a boy who's great one-on-one but kind of mean in a jerky-elder-brother way when in a group. He's the one who "threw rocks near me" in the creek last year, encouraged other kids to "poke the baby Jesus with a stick" at the school-bus stop (where there is a Christmas tree lot and a Nativity scene), and is inclined to sing "K-I-S-S-I-N-G" at other children. But when he's not filling the jerky-elder-brother role (a.k.a. when there's not a mob of kids, especially younger boys to show off to), he's a good kid and a hard worker for his Treasure Box goodies. He can come over to help once he's back from the store.

This is pretty much how non-school-days work here.