What A Great Surprise!

I couldn’t believe it. We had an extremely busy weekend. Explorer Fest at the kids’ school plus my cousin, his wife and precious little girl Kate were in town visiting. We kept little Kate (age 2 ½)while they went to a wedding and then had ALL the family over for dinner Saturday night. Needless to say, parts of our house looked like a disaster when it was all said and done. Though I’m pretty sure most of the damage was done by my own kids. They had just gotten really rowdy.

Anyway, then yesterday we went to church, then lunch at my mom’s before my cousin headed out. We came home and crashed. At least the little girls did and Mike and I even got in a great nap. Mackenzie sat down and watched a movie and to my surprise, Kaitlyn didn’t go try to watch the movie with her. She was busy messing around in the playroom. Well never in a million years did I think I would get up from my nap and this sweet little person was beaming. She said she had a surprise for me. So she takes me upstairs and she had picked up almost every single piece of everything that was all over the playroom.

I just can’t tell you how many pieces had been all over that room. It was a nightmare. And my little 5-year-old picked it all up! Plus we have a huge rounded sectional up there that the little girls had thrown about 10 giant pillows off of. She put all those back and neatly arranged them. Then she took me to her room where she had picked everything up there and even made BOTH beds and folded the blankets and put them on the foot of the beds. Then she showed me the office downstairs where all her art stuff is usually scattered all over the place. She had picked that up too and everything else she could find. I honestly couldn’t believe it. Not only is she generally very unwilling to clean (always telling me she didn’t make the messes therefore she’s not picking them up), I would not think a child her age would even be capable of the mess that was in this house. And yet she did it! She was so proud of herself and I was too!

Of course, no good deed goes unnoticed by sister. Mackenzie instantly was jealous of the attention I gave Kaitlyn. Her first response was to point out the Barbies that were still in the living room. I gently reminded her that one minute earlier she was still playing with them. Then when Kaitlyn said she made her bed, Mackenzie shouted out that she doesn’t want her bed made up and stormed off to go mess it up! Fortunately I threatened her enough times that she stopped halfway and turned around. Hilarious. They just can’t be happy for each other for anything. They have a complete win-lose mentality. If one wins, then the other has clearly lost. I hope as they get older they will see things differently.