Exercise of Not Sucking

It's Day Two into 2012
so I thought I'd re-cap where we are in our adventure of
"Don't Suck":
In the vein of "Do Your Part":
I've had to give a crash-course in
Cleaning the Bathroom
to the Caboose and Boofus
because they were under the impression
that since it is "their bathroom"
they could choose to keep it clean or not.
Good try, yahoos, good try.
Seriously, this was a two-day crash course.
It took so long because I let it take that long.
And then, I'd had enough and demanded results.


According to them, the reason it took so long is because
they didn't know I was "serious".
Hunh? How serious does a mom need to be over cleaning a bathroom?
Apparently, a clenched jaw and gritting teeth, makes a better point
than sayin',
"Guys, you need to clean your bathroom today."
Ugh.
What's funny is that
once the Caboose finished her bathroom
under my close supervision,
she did a bang-up job cleaning her room
with zero supervision.
I forget that the youngest yahoos haven't had to be as
responsible as the oldest--
they haven't had the blessing of a younger mom with more energy and spunk.
They haven't grown up with huge chore charts, etc.
My oldest yahoos let me know how much of a pushover I've become
compared to when I was younger.
It's true.
I have sucked.
But that ended in 2011.
The giant has awakened.
Heads will roll.
yada yada yada.

Okay, moving on...
"Be a Good Example"--
I tried to apply this "Don't Suck" principle
on Christmas Day while climbing into the Suburban
to go to Church.
The Caboose let me know that making a kid go to Church
on Christmas Day was three thousand kinds of wrong
and when she grows up, she will be a "nice mommy"
by letting her kids skip Church if, heaven forbid, it should ever fall on a Sunday.
I told her that considering the Birth of Christ is the reason for all existence,
I could live with her notion that I was less than a "nice mommy."

Serve Others:
We invited some friends over New Years' Eve--
even when I was dog-tired,
because, dang it, I wanna serve others.
And it's easier if you get to know them,
have them into your home,
and adding food to the effort makes it fun!
We sat around and ate everyone's potluck offerings,
talked about our goals for 2012,
and when it was time to say goodnight,
I was more than happy that we'd opened our home.
In fact, I'm looking forward to doing that more often.
We're all needy people.
We need each other,
not just at Christmas time
but all through the year.
And truly, we have some really neat people in our lives--
from our neighbors to our church members and others along the way.

And lastly,
in the sphere of "Do what other people who don't suck do."--
I made the conscious decision to "let things go" more often.
I'm not in competition with anyone else for anything else.
I love my life.
I'm a work in progress and so is everyone else.
So what if I didn't take a single Christmas day picture?
So what if I didn't capture New Years' Day either?
I lost a few presents for the kids before Christmas Day,
but instead of fretting about it,
I let it go and figured, (rightly so), that they would turn up
eventually.
And they did.
I'm thinking that other people who don't suck
are forgiving--
of others and themselves.
And they're patient across the board too.
N' they come up for air once in awhile and take a good look
at where they've come from and where they are
and just BE in the moment.
I can do this.
"Don't Suck"...it's working for me.