The Kindness of a Surprise

"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing."
― Phyllis Diller

"While we teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about."

― Angela Schwindt

A woman I know went on a rare outing ― dinner with several mom friends to celebrate a birthday.  Her children stayed behind with her husband.  As she walked in through her kitchen when she returned, she tried not to look at the towels used for the pool or the pizza boxes or the dishes...  These are the messy years, she told herself and went to sleep.

When she woke up the next morning, she went immediately to the kitchen to begin cleaning up.  There were so many dirty dishes that they did not all fit into the dishwasher, so she put in one load and stacked the others in the sink for the next one.  And she went back to her room to wait for the first load to be finished.

A while later, her children called her.  They had "a surprise."  They had put away all the dishes from the dishwasher and loaded the rest.  They had taken out the trash, and cleaned the counters and the stove.  And they had picked up the remains of "movie night" in the living room.  The woman actually got teary and hugged her children. 

(Those of us who delight in keeping tidy at least one small corner of our universe will understand.)

A little while later, it was time for lunch.  One of the children said, "What?  And mess up the kitchen that took so long to clean?"