So it seems my parental prowess from last week has slipped a bit.  Last week I told the story of how proud I was that I kept my cool when Claire bucked up against me and my reward was a sweet apology.

Well…things change on a dime around here, as I’m sure they do in most families.

I’m trying to stress to my kids the importance of doing good and thorough jobs around the house so they can translate that back into the real world.  Every night the kids have kitchen duty.  I cook, and I clean as I go, but the kids are responsible for making my kitchen sparkling clean after dinner.  I love, Love, LOVE a clean kitchen.  Counters shiny.  Dishes loaded in the dishwasher.  Appliances free of finger prints.  Kitchen sink scrubbed and polished.  Floors free of crumbs and dog hair.  The kids know this and have been assigned these chores for years.  Well, lately their idea of a good and thorough job cleaning my kitchen is about as half-assed as you can possibly get.

I’ve come into the kitchen after they have supposedly finished cleaning to find sticky counters, crumb laden floors with copious amounts of dog hair thrown in, finger print filled appliances, dishes in the sink and a sink so full of germs and disgustingness that science experiments could be conducted with ease.  After the third or fourth or fifth time of finding my kitchen looking like a bio-hazard waiting to be condemned I may have lost my temper a little and told the kids I was tired of the half-assed jobs they were doing.  And yes, I did use the term “half-assed,” and I used it a number of times in rapid succession.  I was trying to prove a point.

And I think I proved it…

When my tirade was coming to an end Lucas said, “You know, Mom, since you say I always do things ‘half-assed’ when I grow up I’m going to start a new company called ‘The Half-Assed Company.’  I’m going to hire Zach and Claire and we’re going to make millions by starting something, completing it  in a half-assed way and then we’ll send it out to another company to finish.”

Well, I’m not sure about you, but for me it’s hard to stay mad when I’m about ready to burst out laughing at Lucas and his ridiculous company name.  That’s his game.  Keep me laughing so I don’t have a chance to stay mad.  He’s charmingly good at it.  I do have to wonder, though, if maybe he might be on to something with his company and the name he came up with.  I’m thinking he needs to get to work on his “Half-Assed Company.”

Oh, for the love of my children…