Summer Days...

My kids are so cool. Apparently they are even too cool to do chores these days.
So I have a really funny story. Although it wasn't funny to me until yesterday when I went to lunch with a couple of my friends and Camille asked me if my summer was calming down yet. I heard that question and I was immediately taken back to the events of the day before. Good thing I can laugh at myself...
Anyone who knows me knows that my math is simple, clean house= happy, unorganized house=grumpy & irrational. You would think that by now my kids would know this about me and do their part. But they must have acquired a convenient case of amnesia this summer!
Of the then 45 days that my children had been on summer vacation I was having a hard time remembering a single day that it had taken them less than 6 hours to complete their daily chores. I don't allow them to play, or go swimming, or even go visit grandma mendoza who is in town, until their responsibilities are taken care of and I will tell you that we were having a very boring summer! This was getting on my nerves!! Even a boring mom needs out of the house some times!
So I presented the question to my kids. "Can you guys think of a day that it didn't take you 6 hours to finish your chores? And when you did finish you hadn't cheated on it at all?" They all thought for a minute and then mercedeez said that she could think of 3 days.
She was very proud of herself and so I got out the calendar and we counted how many days of summer there had been. Her voice lowered and her head went down and she said "ohhh".
And that is when my fit began. I moved briskly through the house stomping, and cleaning, moving from room to room, lecturing the whole time. I still wasn't getting the response I wanted and so I did what any desperate mom would do... I assured them that they were all getting spankings when their dad got home!!
Soon Billy called from work and he heard an ear full from me for 20 min. straight. I assured him that I was not mad but that I had been pondering about it all day and decided that the kids needed spankings and that he needed to do it because if I did it it wouldn't hurt enough.
He was probably laughing at me inside and he kindly told me that he really didn't want to spank them but that yes they should have a punishment. "Let's ground them indefinitely" I said very seriously. He probably laughed inside again and he said he would take care of it when he got home. We hung up but I was not satisfied. I went out to the children and I told them they could have the choice of being grounded for 2 days or get spanked from dad. Our obviously naive children all picked spankings!!!! They are totally clueless to the legendary terror of the fathers spanking!! I heard them reasoning that the pain would go away but that they couldn't bear to be apart from their friends. I was a little disappointed.
They are, however, familiar to military discipline tactics!! When Billy got home he gave them the option to be grounded or do butts on the wall.... they ALL chose to be grounded!! ha ha