A personal discourse every good mother knows

Today my kids had to clean! -Death. Torture. A convenient alien abduction. The flu. Diarrea. -All of these alternatives seem to be more attractive and more enjoyable to my children than merely picking up a sock, folding a shirt, sweeping the floor, retrieving the random fruit loop out of the heater vent. I would love to say that most of the time I can endure, but too often I feel just as picked on when I "make" my kids clean. Whining, complaining, the all to often used fake cry -they come out in full glory when I use the "C" word around our house. While cleaning Carver asked,"Why do you always make us do stuff?" My answer back was simply,"because I love you." He replied,"you don't love me, if you did then you wouldn't make me clean!" I then gave Carver "The Look," and unfortunately "The Look," doesn't' look so lovingly. So if I was totally capable of saying the right thing at the right time, here would be my answer.
Carver, I love you enough to teach you how to work, I endure all the whining, complaining, fighting, so that one day you will be able to provide for yourself. Yes, it would be much easier if i just let you go upstairs and turn on some brainless T.V show so that I could clean in Peace. But, that wouldn't work either, because I have decided not have cable in our home, because I love you enough to want your brain to be fed with good things. And no, Carver, I don't really believe that if that power ranger doesn't get picked up that it is going to be the end of the world. But, I want you to learn to leave things nicer than you found them, so I ask you to pick it up. I love you enough to ask you clean up some of your brother's stuff. I know the answer you will give me before you even give it, but I ask you anyway, just to teach you that it is good to help others even when we don't want to. I could let you continue playing that game boy you just found while cleaning, but the truth is I love seeing your face looking up instead of turned down into some nameless video game, thus I will continue to listen to you complain as I take it away. It would be so much easier on the both of us to quit right not and just go about doing our own business, but the truth is I want you to know that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to, even things that you don't particularly like! Because unfortunately in life, you will encounter many obstacles that you will need to cross, most will be things you don't like. I love you enough to listen to you tell me a very moving story about your friend who has the nicest mom in the whole world, because she never makes your friend clean and she always buys your friend stuff. But, I love you enough to not to go into a personal discourse about how I think that your friend is on the path to becoming a total lazy, loser and how his mom is taking the chicken's way out. So, I love you enough just to say, "if you learn to work now, it will be easier to buy stuff later, when it really matters." And then you tell me that your friend's mom is always so nice and that his mom cleans his room for him. I listen and I listen and then I offer to call his mother and see if she will adopt you or at least me (by this time my patience is wearing very thin). BUT, as I dialed her number I noticed how much taller you look today compared to last week, and then I realize that we were a little bit better and faster in cleaning today, than last week, and that has told me that you have grown a little, and that is the hardest part of all.........watching it happen and knowing that there is no turning back. And then I become a little choked up, when I realize, that despite all the whining, complaining and mock torturing, that I will wish these moments back someday -the two of us working together side by side. It isn't until I hear your friend's mom on the phone, that I remember I dialed her number. I had a difficult time hearing her, due to the loud cartoon blaring in the background, so I just hung up the phone and went back to the peaceful sound of you complaining about having to clean. I love you enough to think it sounded like music to my ears.