Drop and Give Me 150!

My husband is driving me CRAZY!

Weekends in my house sound like a cleaning boot camp!

Once he's up and about, EVERYONE should be up and about, cleaning the house spotless.

Sleeping in is not an option most of the time because he is the early bird and literally starts making noise before 8am.  Too often, it’s starting a load of laundry.  

NO I CANNOT SLEEP with the washer spinning!

Of course, that noise is going to start the sleepers in the house to start rustling in their beds until they can’t sleep anymore. 

Well, once they are awake, it’s Drill Sergeant time.

Did you clean the kitchen?

50 push ups!

Didn’t I tell you to sweep the floor?

100 push ups!

Why isn’t your bed made?

Don’t ask to go outside today!

Did you brush your teeth?

Put away the dishes.

Clean the bathroom.

You didn’t clean your room.

That’s 150!

It’s not that he makes them clean up that gets on my nerves.  It’s more the extent of the fussing and the fact that “Everyone is nasty!” 

As their mom, that’s more or less a direct hit on me because I feel like I bust my butt to make them keep the house clean during the week, and he comes home and complains about how nasty everyone is.  I’m not perfect, nor do I expect to live in a perfect house.  My home is clean but lived in.  

Yeah, there are things on the 6 year old's floor that she decided not to clean up after playing Barbies.  

Yeah there are crumbs on the floor from having potato chips at lunch and yeah the boys may have left video game controllers in the middle of the floor in their rooms, but I’m okay with that.  

I’m okay with NOT being perfect.

I’m also okay with having the kids learn responsibility and learn how to clean.  

Y’all KNOW how much I make them clean.  All too often one will come to me and say, "Mom, we're the only ones out of our friends that have to do chores."  And, I'll say, that's because your friends' parents are CRAZY!  You're going to learn to be responsible for yourselves. Your friends who don't have chores will grow up to me messy and irresponsible."  And their okay with that.  They feel that chores are a necessary evil.

What I’m NOT okay with is that I do all of this and because it is no longer perfect when Hubs gets home, I feel like I’m insignificant as he becomes the drill sergeant yelling about what isn’t done.  I feel like I’ve failed as a stay at home mom when he yells at them for what hasn’t been cleaned.  But that’s a feeling I’m going to have to work on, I guess. 

My father was the same way.  When he was home, he made a big fuss about what was not done around the house.  I wonder if it’s a Soldier thing.  I wonder how my mom felt.