Friday, August 14, 2009

For the 35,983rd Time

Daughter was supposed to be cleaning her room yesterday.
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"Mom, I just don't know where to begin-- there's too much!"
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"Start with the laundry basket in your room." I had noticed that she had a laundry basket piled high with various items.
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As the evening progressed, she began emerging from her room to find me with great excitement. She was finding things that had been missing, things that I had been after her to find. Several times she asked me to come in and see the progress she had made. At one point she came in and told me, "Mom, I'm feeling so much better!"
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This morning I asked her how full the hamper was as a result of her room cleaning. She knew I had just finished laundry yesterday. She knows that I get rather frustrated when she keeps her dirty clothes in her room and doesn't put them in the hamper. She tried to minimize what she had placed in the hamper. Then she said, "Mom, I promise that from now on I will always put my dirty clothes in the hamper right away."
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I wanted to say, "Yeah, right." What I said was, "I hope so." Who knows? Maybe on this 35,983rd time she will actually remember and follow through. Maybe she will begin to get cause and effect. Maybe she will actually learn from her mistakes. I can always hope.

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