And Then We Had A Huge Group Hug

It's been one of those days. It was too cold for the kid's to play in the snow, so they were stuck inside all day. I did 35 loads of laundry and before I could put away my neatly folded piles, the kids turned them into "leaf piles." Let's just say I checked out the windows for DSS for the next hour.

I usually don't give the kids naps on Fridays so that I can get them to bed early and have a nice few hours with Dave. As we were doing our evening ritual of picking up rooms, brushing teeth and peeing as many times as I can encourage, the kids were dragging feet, complaining, bickering and just being uncooperative. Finally, after much yelling from the other room to finish picking up, I knew it was time to step it up. Situations like this call for only one thing- bribery. But, I was feeling pretty courageous, so I decided to go with choice number two- faith-based bribery!

I gathered the kids together and gave them a mini pep-talk about family, cooperation, service and any other guilt-inducing concepts I could manage. Then I threw the bait.

"Show me who can be most like Jesus the rest of the evening. Whoever does the best job will get a reward."

I went back to folding laundry and waited. And waited. And waited. The silence was unbelievable. Astounding. Confusing. A bit disturbing.

I walked back in the room to find them lying on the floor with arms outstretched.

"What are you guys doing? You're supposed to be cleaning."

"No mom, we're on the Cross. You told us to be like Jesus!"