THE LABORIOUS LABOR DAY

As a reward for a phenomenally smooth transition to their new school and a subsequently very successful first week, the monsters easily negotiated a chore-free, bed-making-free, grocery-shopping-free weekend.

So, after a quick jaunt to the farmers' market (mostly for the kettle corn), that was pretty much the extent of adult interaction for me. The remainder of the weekend consisted of Friday Night Game Night (we played King of Toads; Saia totally kicked butt), Saturday Night Movie Night (we watched Igor; the review's still out on that one), and then, of course, we played Swiss Family Robinson on Sunday afternoon. So by the time Monday came around, I gotta tell ya, people, I was really kinda jonesing for some grown up activity.

I awoke with a one-track mind and wasted no time getting down and dirty. On my hands and knees on the cold bathroom tile, I wrapped my fingers around the toilet bowl cleaner and made that porcelain bowl sparkle and shine. (What? What were YOU thinking?!?!)

And as soon as the monsters began wiggling around in bed, I recruited them into the fold, just as my mother had done to me, and her mother before her, and like every other Mexican mother who knows the value-add of personal child labor.

And for the next two hours, although they huffed and puffed beyond belief, we scrubbed and swept and mopped and dusted. We divided the chores, made lists for each of us, and tackled the cleaning like Merry Maids.

By noon, I began to feel almost normal again, just in time to fulfill the rest of the kids' reward request, lunch at Benihana's and swimming at Mommy's. Before leaving the house, though, the kids insisted they post a whole bunch of these little signs all over the place so that no one (like who, I have no idea) would slip and fall while we were gone.

Not entirely certain, but if they're learning about tort claims and personal injury law in first grade at the new school, I'm thinking it's probably gonna be a pretty great (or at least fairly lucrative) year.