Answers to Prayers

This is a hand of God entry, for which I am grateful. I had a prayer answered over a month ago, but I didn't realize it until yesterday, so much for being in tune.

I'd been having problems getting my kids to clean. Now, I'm no neat freak, far from it, but I just like the clutter and the toys picked up and, after nine years, I was getting tired of being the main picker-upper. However, none of my kids love to clean up their toys--shock--and two of them outright hate it. So it was always a struggle, usually leaving me seething and the kids angry or crying and the basement only half picked up.

I'd been praying for a while for some inspiration on what to do, and every time I thought I'd found a fix, it would work once or twice, and then we'd be back to normal. Well a month ago I had an inspiration while cleaning. I was holding a flashlight and it was darkish in the basement. As a joke, I said, "Let's play CSI cleanup," because, as anyone who has ever watched an episode of any of the three CSI's, it can be full sunlight, dark midnight or anywhere in between and they use their all powerful flashlights, forgoing turning on the lights, to find clues. I shined the light on toys I wanted them to pick up and told them these were clues to why the basement was such a mess. We had a good time, they fell over themselves picking up the "clues" and that was that, except the basement was 100% picked up and there were no tears.

Since then, I've used "CSI Cleanup" at least twice a week, including two times when they cleaned alone, and we never have tears, no fights and everything gets picked up. EVERYTHING, even when they do it. (I suspect it's the power of making their siblings pick up anything they shine the light on, it's a heady thing.) But yesterday I realized that this was my long awaited answer to fun cleaning with my kids. I'm grateful that our Father in Heaven answers all prayers, even the ones that in the grand scheme of things, aren't really that important.