“We’re cleaning house this weekend,” I say to The Trolls. Ominously. Or rather, with as much fear-inducing frost in my voice as I can muster.
The April school holiday saw them notching up the naughtiness-barometer at lightning speed, day after day, night after night, and I, The Urban Single Mom, have had just about enough of living with two half boy-half man monsters who watch television all night, ignore their chores, lie about bathing, eat like sumo wrestlers and back chat whenever either I or their grandmother make a request.
They have been on that spoilt brat slippery slope of menace, and I was at the figurative and literal end of my rope.
I work and they sleep. I slave and they play. I labour and they laze. I grind… and they sit back, relax and twiddle their thumbs on their Playstation gaming console.
Neither the dog bowl or Max and Mimi’s cage (our pair of lovebirds) have been cleaned in a week. Their room smells like boy sweat and dirty socks, the electricity is running out thanks to all-night Nickelodean and Cartoon Network marathon sessions, the backyard is now an actual forest and it’s been way too long since I’ve seen or heard them talk about anything that remotely resembles a school subject.
And so, with the balance of life finally restored (read: Schools have re-opened!), what better time for me to turn chaos into order and whip them back into a shape and form that I can stomach.
I’ve cut short all their “but Mooommm!” pouts and whines with a quick, razor sharp “no. No more talking. No more replying. No more excuses. This is my house and it is a not a democracy. We’re cleaning up, and that is the end of it” and the stage is set.
Just in time for the National Clean-Up Campaign.
I know, I know.
Cleaning House is not exactly what the President had in mind when he called for this day, but in my defense, The Trolls are my Nation, and charity (and cleanliness for that matter!) begins at home.
And so cleaning house is what I’ll be up to today, tomorrow and judging by my current bout of OCD, the next day in all probability as well.
Cleaning is my therapy, guys. And if that sounds a little Bree van de Kamp from ‘Desperate Housewives’, well, then that’s exactly what it is. I can’t lose my cool out there, you see. I can’t scream. I can’t punch things (or people). And under no circumstances can I lose my cool.
As a single mom, that’s the one thing you can’t lose.
No matter how tired, no matter how stressed, no matter how upset, no matter how heartbroken… You may not give up.
Because of the fact that I was ordained by God to carry these two buggers in my heart and in my universe, I have to keep on keeping on.
And so I clean. I sweep and swipe and scrub and wash and go back again and do it all again.
Because cleaning gives me time to think, to process, to strategise and to reboot.
The Trolls will no doubt remember their mother’s maniacal cleaning sprees one day when they’re older. Hopefully they’ll remember the peace after the storm as well.
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