![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
LJI Week 3
Oct. 23rd, 2018 09:21 pm"Start at the very beginning, it's a very fine place to start."
"Yeah, Thank you very much Julie Andrews, but Maria had servants, and Mary Poppins had magic." She thought a tad snidely.
Although to be fair, her childhood idol came to mind whenever she set her sights on a project, and deep cleaning her home was long overdo. Each room came equipped with its unique set of traps to ensnare you.
Her kitchen was a time suck of replacing recipe cards, and organizing the gadgets, geegaws and utensils. This room boasted the dreaded 'junk drawer of doom' where all loose nuts, nails, bread ties, screws, and that one washer that never seems to fit anything, go to die.
Wiping the pantry shelves came next, along with scrubbing appliances and cleaning out the refrigerator. Ugh, no. She'd wait until the kids were home to help tackle those. They could give her a hand in the scrub down. Always appreciative of their hard work, a promised trip for Chinese as a reward (and bribe), would guarantee co-operation with minimal grumbling.
Determined to tackle a different job, she headed up the stairs. Her family bathroom finally getting more than the 'lick and a promise' she kept settling for. It would be nice to see it clean for a few hours when all the scrubbing was done. Relaxing with a luxurious soak (without someone else's hair in the drain), would be her present to herself.
Continuing on to her son's room, she snagged his laundry basket from the corner of his room, and threw whatever scattered clothing didn't pass her smell test into it. The rest she hung up in the closet or folded and placed them back in their drawers.
Various games and their pieces or cards, were mixed together like tossed salad on his closet floor. Twenty minutes passed before she figured out what belonged where. She shook her head in exasperation, at the realization of how many of her cups and plates were in his bedroom, many growing science projects. They too, went into the basket, destined for the sink. She was going to have to set new goals for her son, and the dishware problem would be one.
While tidying his bed she discovered a box beneath it, filled with all sorts of ten-year old boy detritus. Cicada carcasses, a snake skin, marbles, and a hunk of pyrite he'd sworn wholeheartedly was gold. Her heart smiled at the memory of his earnest belief, and at how she couldn't be cruel to that sweet face and tell him the truth. Shaking off the remembrance, she finished arranging his books, dusted, vacuumed, and moved on to her daughter's chaos.
And chaos it was. It looked as if her daughter's Johnny The Homicidal Maniac comics, had squared off against the Dragonball-Z Manga in an ugly rumble. Meanwhile the R.L.Stine books (which her daughter had grown out of), along with her daughter's current obsession, The Harry Potter series, were strewn about the floor willy-nilly, like spectators who had quickly sprung away before they became entangled in the brawl. She straightened these up, stacked and sorted piles, and moved them to safer areas.
She changed linens, and resisted reading the notes she found tucked in both pillows. She firmly believed in giving her children some privacy and trust, and her daughter more than deserved it. She was such an enormous help to her, and patient with her special needs brother. She worried that too much responsibility had been foisted on her daughter's young shoulders, but being a single mother, there were many times she didn't have a choice.
Which is why when she came across the stack of marble notebooks that her daughter used as diaries - she rocked back on her heels, and bit her lip. Notes were one thing, but this left her honestly conflicted.
Who wouldn't want to know what their child thinks of them? Or gain insight, an edge, into their world? However, by reading these books' pages, she could needlessly, out of curiosity, open herself to possible having her perceptions of her daughter change, and not for the better. What if her daughter wasn't whom she thought? Did she want to know this?
In the end she left them alone and gathered the laundry, vacuumed, and shut the door, content in the knowledge that she loved her daughter, and wouldn't change a thing about her.
Until her 13year old daughter came home from school, took a gander at her freshly cleaned room, and screamed 'My identity's been stolen! Mom, how could you?'
She may have wanted a little change then.
*Based on a true story - all concrit welcome.
"Yeah, Thank you very much Julie Andrews, but Maria had servants, and Mary Poppins had magic." She thought a tad snidely.
Although to be fair, her childhood idol came to mind whenever she set her sights on a project, and deep cleaning her home was long overdo. Each room came equipped with its unique set of traps to ensnare you.
Her kitchen was a time suck of replacing recipe cards, and organizing the gadgets, geegaws and utensils. This room boasted the dreaded 'junk drawer of doom' where all loose nuts, nails, bread ties, screws, and that one washer that never seems to fit anything, go to die.
Wiping the pantry shelves came next, along with scrubbing appliances and cleaning out the refrigerator. Ugh, no. She'd wait until the kids were home to help tackle those. They could give her a hand in the scrub down. Always appreciative of their hard work, a promised trip for Chinese as a reward (and bribe), would guarantee co-operation with minimal grumbling.
Determined to tackle a different job, she headed up the stairs. Her family bathroom finally getting more than the 'lick and a promise' she kept settling for. It would be nice to see it clean for a few hours when all the scrubbing was done. Relaxing with a luxurious soak (without someone else's hair in the drain), would be her present to herself.
Continuing on to her son's room, she snagged his laundry basket from the corner of his room, and threw whatever scattered clothing didn't pass her smell test into it. The rest she hung up in the closet or folded and placed them back in their drawers.
Various games and their pieces or cards, were mixed together like tossed salad on his closet floor. Twenty minutes passed before she figured out what belonged where. She shook her head in exasperation, at the realization of how many of her cups and plates were in his bedroom, many growing science projects. They too, went into the basket, destined for the sink. She was going to have to set new goals for her son, and the dishware problem would be one.
While tidying his bed she discovered a box beneath it, filled with all sorts of ten-year old boy detritus. Cicada carcasses, a snake skin, marbles, and a hunk of pyrite he'd sworn wholeheartedly was gold. Her heart smiled at the memory of his earnest belief, and at how she couldn't be cruel to that sweet face and tell him the truth. Shaking off the remembrance, she finished arranging his books, dusted, vacuumed, and moved on to her daughter's chaos.
And chaos it was. It looked as if her daughter's Johnny The Homicidal Maniac comics, had squared off against the Dragonball-Z Manga in an ugly rumble. Meanwhile the R.L.Stine books (which her daughter had grown out of), along with her daughter's current obsession, The Harry Potter series, were strewn about the floor willy-nilly, like spectators who had quickly sprung away before they became entangled in the brawl. She straightened these up, stacked and sorted piles, and moved them to safer areas.
She changed linens, and resisted reading the notes she found tucked in both pillows. She firmly believed in giving her children some privacy and trust, and her daughter more than deserved it. She was such an enormous help to her, and patient with her special needs brother. She worried that too much responsibility had been foisted on her daughter's young shoulders, but being a single mother, there were many times she didn't have a choice.
Which is why when she came across the stack of marble notebooks that her daughter used as diaries - she rocked back on her heels, and bit her lip. Notes were one thing, but this left her honestly conflicted.
Who wouldn't want to know what their child thinks of them? Or gain insight, an edge, into their world? However, by reading these books' pages, she could needlessly, out of curiosity, open herself to possible having her perceptions of her daughter change, and not for the better. What if her daughter wasn't whom she thought? Did she want to know this?
In the end she left them alone and gathered the laundry, vacuumed, and shut the door, content in the knowledge that she loved her daughter, and wouldn't change a thing about her.
Until her 13year old daughter came home from school, took a gander at her freshly cleaned room, and screamed 'My identity's been stolen! Mom, how could you?'
She may have wanted a little change then.
*Based on a true story - all concrit welcome.
