Monday, April 13, 2009

LTHW

20minutes.
That was their limit.
Completely doable.
Simple assignment in two words : Purge, taintless.
Fail the assignment: Forfeit whatever remains polluted.
Yet just like putting a cat and dog in a square box and expecting it to work, the teacher was wrong. For they spent the time, brawling.
Rather then work as a team, they failed.

Which meant that the teacher had to implement, using her very loud brass voice "forfeit the polluted!" as she entered their square, their assignment that was far from purged and sanitary.

The One that you would dub leftie ran out of the room looking for the first place to hide, typical of a cat.

The One that you would dub the eldest, sat there plotting, voicing in barks the reason why the assignment was failed-he blamed the cat.-
Typical of a dog.

The teacher entered their room with a big white garbage bag and began the lesson that she required that they witness. Tears and red faced blotches were obvious on the oldest. The middle one refused to lift his head, so, the teacher decided that if he wouldn't watch what he was losing, he would have to hear it.
She began to name everything that she placed in the big plastic garbage bag.
Naturally this upset the red faced oldest even more, but a lesson is a lesson and the teacher had to remind herself not.to.feel.bad. It wasn't her fault they failed. It wasn't her fault they had to forfeit.

She didn't give them something that they couldn't handle. She gave them a simple task because they are old enough to manage. She reminded herself not to be upset, because this was on them. Sure she could secretly feel bad, because this particular teacher can recall her emotions from when she herself was a child, yet she does remember that when her parents told her to do something, she sure as hell did it.

That was how the teachers two older sons learned the hard way. LTHW if you feel like LMAO'ing at it, that would be how to text it or shorten it, should you only have 20minutes to clean up somewhere yourself.

I asked them to clean their room. I told them that they had 20minutes and I would give them updates on how much time they had left. I warned them that if they messed around they wouldn't finish. I told them that whatever was left on the floor after the 20 minutes were up, I would be placing it in a garbage bag and hauling it out, treating it like trash.


They obviously didn't think I was serious. They messed around and so I took everything that was left on their floor (this included the crap that they slyly slid under their dresser and behind their toy bins, yeah, good try guys!). Sure they cried, "but that was my favorite Bakugan, that was my favorite Webkinz, that was my favorite star wars storm/clone trooper..wauu wauww waaaaaawwwww."

"Well," said I as I tossed in another Indiana Jones action hero, "if they were all your favorites, then you should have picked them up and put them in their proper places when you were told to do so. You shouldn't have left them laying on the floor. If they meant that much to you, you'd have taken better care of them."

Sullivan lost his Nintendo DS and Jackson lost his escape pod ship from his Millennium falcon ship. The bag was overflowing with crap and so, what I did was allow them to look INTO the bag and to VIEW all that they were losing, and I gave them the choice to pick out one thing to save, the rest I was taking from them.

Sullivan took back his DS game system, and Jackson took back his escape pod.

The bag and I then left the room for them to bawl their eyes out in sadness over the fact that their beloved toys were now gone.

Sadly, after I left to run errands (EXCUSES TO ESCAPE), I called Brian and asked him how they were doing.

They were fine. Which goes to show you the point that I had in the first place, they have way to much crap and they don't truly respect it.

Since the bag has left, they haven't missed it.

Lessons learned the Hard Way and now they know I mean business.
Don't mess with the CrustyMom! Sure, I may not have showered for two days, my legs may be hairier then Ben's uni brow, and my attire screams CRUST FACTORY, but I refuse to allow their little minds to overpower mine. It just isn't going to happen.

At least not today it's not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My heart breaks for them.
UPDATE:
To read more, visit Heather's close friend's blog, here AMOMTWOBOYS. (Heather's site had so much traffic they had to take it down for a bit (SPOHRS ARE MULTIPLYING))
Heather and Mike Lost their little girl Maddie suddenly. Please send your love and prayers.
If you'd like to help, they're asking in lieu of flowers you make a donation to the March of Dimes Foundation. If you'd like to help with their medical costs see the link below. What a beautiful little girl with such an energizing spirit and eyes that read straight to her soul. My heart is with them.
Dear Maddie.
November 11th 2007-April 7th 2009






14 comments:

Cheryl said...

You're one smart mom. I wish I had had your resolve.

Anonymous said...

I love it! And I'm with you :0)

happyone said...

Good for you. Next time I'm sure they will pick up their toys when you tell them to.

KathyA said...

Moms! George Patton had nothing over us!

CRUSTY MOM-E said...

Cheryl: believe me the only resolve I have is under the cabinet where the cleaning supplies are, and even that doesn't take out the stains in the realtor biege carpet. :)

CRUSTY MOM-E said...

anon: thanks!

CRUSTY MOM-E said...

Happy one; If they know what's best for them.

CRUSTY MOM-E said...

Kathy: AGREED!!!

Susan's Snippets said...

CB -

I guarantee that of the TWO toys (approximately) that we each had growing up...we kept track of where they were and took good care of them.

This whole generation coming up has way, way, too much stuff.

enough

Diane Vogel Ferri said...

bravo for you! tough love is much harder on the mom (or dad) I think.

Dawn said...

Go you. We do the same thing here. One application is enough, now they listen.

CRUSTY MOM-E said...

Snippy: My girlfriend and I were chatting about that..too much stuff inbetween..

CRUSTY MOM-E said...

Coexist: it truly is..and then someday we'll lean back and recline and watch their heartaches as we are grammie and grampa while hopefully they display tough love to their little ones.

CRUSTY MOM-E said...

Dawn: I like the way you put it, "one application." Made me think of when a dog has mange and they need to be dipped more then once, multiple applications. :) lol
Here's to hoping that once is good enough. :)

((Holding up wine!))
hope you're doing better