One of the opportunities that moving affords is the ability to start anew. I won’t have a pile of crap on my kitchen counter here. Oh, no, it will be an “everything has its place” kind of house. And what a good time to take stock of our bins of toys, right? While I’m at it, I think I will involve my five-year-old in the process. Yes, I’m a flipping genius.
This is one of those pesky parenting issues that seems to know no age. What are your secrets to getting your kids to pick up afer themselves?
As I was working on an essay about using humor in your home for Parent & Child magazine today, I had one of my suggestions tested. Today I was the filling of the sandwich… as in, the sandwich generation. Vivien is being toilet-trained, and since it was my dad’s 80th birthday, he spent the night at my house. We had a great party for him the night before, but I didn’t want him to wake up in assisted living, away from kin.
Well, just because I’m on TV doesn’t mean I don’t spend my mornings cleaning up the urine of my many loved ones from the carpet or couch. I wrote in my essay that moms don’t have time to turn the tragedy into comedy. You have to go right to the comedy. As I scrubbed my hallway carpet – the most expensive carpet I have ever bought – I initially found this hard to do. Then I had my half-cup of coffee and the old funny bone started firing up. Also, I got some perspective, thinking of people in their own real tragedies. So what’s a little pee between loved ones?
