You're fired!

Owen had another life lesson yesterday taught to him by his blessed mother (and yes, my blog I think I will begin to refer to myself as blessed, history according to Jamie). Anyho, the boys often will ask for extra chores as a means to earn money. Lily still has no concept of wanting to work for toys. She simply throws whatever her heart desires in her mothers shopping cart at Target and Viola! Luckily by the time we get to the register she has usually forgotten about the ten precious objects that she simply must have and I unload them for go-backs (job security man!).

I digress. So, Owen, yesterday wanting to earn money and my house being especially messy he was hired for day labor (did I ever tell you about the time that some "real" day labor we had hired to help us move came back the next morning to rob us?) I really digress but these are some sweet memories.


This was a lot of fun (read with a sarcastic tone for full effect). We were moving from Dallas to Southlake and Mr. Mead and his love for moving prompted him to hire people to do the heavy lifting. There is something about moving that sends the usual cool and collected Mr. Mead into a state. He doesn't start out this way but anything can set it off; changing rooms a box goes to, a stubbed toe, lint on his shirt. Love YOU baby, BTW. To alleviate this, we've learned that Chad's best skills are in moving management. Sure he'll pitch in with a stray couch here or there but he shines with directorial roles and crowd control.

In Dallas there is a known place where a bunch of illegal immigrants go and wait to be picked up for day labor. Perfect! THAT place is a trip, if this tells you anything about our first apartment in Dallas it was literally two blocks from this location. Yes, the Meads have come along way, and thankfully we weren't murdered or afflicted with any long term diseases from the Park Avenue apartments. Picture this, and do not get bogged down with the obvious sad implications for these fine men and their families, stay with me, people!





So, you're in your car and you pull up to this large group, anywhere from fifty to two hundred men all standing around a parking lot. You slow your car down, they see you, the crowd moves in on your still moving car. Once you come to a complete stop you know what it is like to be Lindsay Lohan on her way to a court appearance. They surround your car, if your doors aren't locked they are opening them trying to secure the position by hopping right in (we learned that once the hard way!) The window rolls down and the negotiating games begin. Mr. Mead commands the scene with his impressive Venezuelan Spanish language skills and three men are chosen for the task.

We make the move from Dallas to Southlake without much excitement. Since they were the ones moving us they knew of our plans to return to Dallas that evening to spend one last night in our old house. They were paid and profusely thanked for their hard work and we proceeded back to our Dallas home. Where we immediately changed our minds about sleeping on air mattresses, quickly cleaned it up and set out for our new, bigger and better home in OZ.

Fast forward to the next morning. Picture your house the day after you move in. Chaos. Stuff everywhere, children opening random boxes prompting uncomfortable conversations about mommy's underwear, you get the picture. Cue, time for Daddy to leave! Ha. Oh, the early days of Chad being an attorney, working ALL THE TIME, oh the joy. So there you have me, Owen and our then baby Luke all alone in our new house with Mr. Mead at his office in Dallas. The boys were both in the office with me when I hear the little beep beep beep whenever a door opens. I know instantly that it was not good.

Adrenaline surges through me, I shut the boys in the office rush out to the middle part of the house. Standing between the shocked familiar faces from yesterday and my children, I scream a unearthly scream that I don't think I could replicate if I tried. I screamed for Chad to get his gun that these guys were in our house, pretending that Chad was in our bedroom (hoping that the memory of my six foot five pure muscle (oh yeah) of a husband would cause them to think twice). Thankfully it did. They tore out of the house so fast and took off in a red jeep. This whole encounter was probably only forty-five seconds long but whoa, it was intense. I discovered that the night before on their way out of the house they had unlocked the door leading from the backyard to the garage. Making for a potentially easy break-in had we not been there. Oh, memories.





Okay. Where in the world was I, what is this post even about. Ah, Owen yes. He was hired to clean this mess up. Unload the dishwasher, wash the dishes, vacuum and sweep all the tile, wipe the counters and put away the eighty-two random toys that were strewn throughout the house. For $2.50. I know, I know, I am too generous but he is my first born son, after all . Our usual even tempered boy was struggling, complaining that Lily was re-messing his work back up, "you don't say, how frustrating that would be!" I say with a huge grin on my face.

I encourage him to get it together and continue, I'm not paying you to listen to you complain. That is reserved for your unpaid regular chores, after all! He unloads the dishwasher, I walk in the room and he has unloaded the wrong dishwasher. He has carefully put away an almost completely full dishwasher of dirty dishes. Leaving the other dishwasher still full with bright, clean dishes. I guess having two dishwashers does have one dis-advantage. I show him and tell him to put back all the dirty dishes and start over. OH THE DRAMA! The crying, the wailing. NO no no!!

So. I do what any cruel and heartless mother would do. I fired him. It makes me laugh out loud to think of it. Am I terrible, yes a little I'm sure. But I wasn't in the mood for a motherly pep talk, "you can do it son! come on think of all that money $2.50, all for you!"


Instead he got a dose of the real world from me. Personally I believe that all mothers need a bit of a cruel streak. To prepare their children for what is really out there, for disappointments and harsh realities. Lucky for my children, this mama DOES!

BOO-YEAH.