Emily is in tears at the top of the stairs, where I meet her on my way up.
"Why?" is all I need to say.
"Because I can't organize my desk drawers!" This is the task to which I set her about ten minutes ago.
"Yes. Yes you can. Know how I know?"
She gives me a shrug. But before I can elaborate she bursts out with, "Just because I can organize a closet doesn't mean I can organize dra~werrrrr~sss!" (We can all hear that whine, yes?) (Also, she is kick-ass at cleaning out a closet.)
I herd her into her room. Sort of. Mostly I just shove her through the doorway and stare aghast at the wreckage. Nay, the carnage. Because a tornado must have been knifed to death in a dank alley. Then someone set off a bomb in said alley and blew all the crap into Emily's room.
"Er, Emily? Why did I tell you to clean out your desk drawers?"
"I thought my room was clean when I told you it was." Fake innocent look.
"And, my love, what do you think, then, you should be doing?" Who cares if the drawers are messy when Littlest Pet Shop creatures and clothing are to the floor what an oil-tanker is to the Pacific?
"But it's impossible! It's too much to clean!"
"Are you for real?" I march her to my own bedroom. "Look at this. Now whose room is the bigger mess?" (Shut up, peanut gallery.) She gives me a pathetic whine. "WHO has more to clean up?" My voice is getting louder, but only in I-can't-believe-you're-going-to-try-to-complain-ity. "And! My room is twice the size of yours!"
"Yeah, but," she digs through her brain, tears still streaming, "you have Daddy to help you!"
I just stare at her, askance, in incredulity.
The weeping stops as she gives a wet snort-laugh.
She knows when she has been beaten. There is no defeating my clean-laundry-ridden, desk-paper-strewn, books-piled-everywhere logic.
I ask her, "Wanna trade?"
I've taught her well. She flees before I can turn her into my indentured servant.
Happy Birthday to Pam
-
I think I love wrapping presents almost as much as I love searching for
them and giving them away. For Pam's Birthday today, we knew we wanted to
get her s...
13 years ago
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