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Thursday, September 2, 2010

Marathon Dishwashing

My 13-year-old middle daughter (13YOMD) HATES washing dishes! She will do ANYTHING to keep from doing them. And because of her disdain (I must use this word in Scrabble) for dish washing, she's very slow.

Mr. Husband and I put our heads together, and believe the longest time she's washed dishes is 3 hours. 13YOMD has this ritual, or process she goes through. First, she removes EVERY dish from the sink, stacking them in groups, cups, silverware, plates...

While taking the dishes out of the sink, and stacking them accordingly, 13YOMD is also rinsing every one that has ANY partical of food on it. She hates for food to be in the water. "That's gross!"

Step one and two can take at least an hour. That means NOT ONE DISH IS CLEAN YET!

After cleaning out the sink, actual soap, water and towel cleaning (occassionally using SOS), she finally runs dishwater, and washes by groups. Silverware does not hangout with cups in the water, they all wait their turn.

Add in the radio13YOMD is listening to, stopping to check out the TV, and her sister's conversation, it takes her even longer! At times it has gotten so bad, Mr. Husband has given her a time limit, with the threat of punishment. That has helped, but when there's no motivation, she right back to working at a snails pace!You'd think she'd wash dishes quick-fast and in a hurry because she hates it so much.

Yes, we have a dishwasher, but we don't use it every night. When 13YOMD loads the dishwasher, it still takes at least an hour. She still takes each dish out of the sink stacking them in groups, and rinsing them before putting them in the dishwasher.

She's the slowest child in the house, maybe our city. Banned from taking showers, her time in the bathtub is another post all together!

6 comments:

Tyrone said...

Wow. I thought I was obsessive about the dishwasher. Three hours? I get happy if I take 20 minutes to put away dry stuff, unload and load the new washer.

That being said...you're still pretty lucky she has this eye for detail.

Anonymous said...

l'm a newcomer to your blog, and l heart it! This is such a great post, l hope that this is not what's in store for me and my 11 year old.

Annah said...

I think that's how I feel about cleaning. I HATE cleaning. What should take me forty minutes usually takes me four hours. I feel your daughter's pain.

Anonymous said...

Pretty nice place you've got here. Thanks for it. I like such themes and anything that is connected to them. I would like to read a bit more on that blog soon.

Bella Hakkinen

Chaotically Calm said...

Hola La'Tonya,

I used to be like 13YOMD until I realized it didn't matter how long I took I was still going to be responsible for cleaning all the dishes. Somewhere in my mind I thought if I took long my parents wouldn't continue to have this be my main responsibility, I was wrong. After realizing this I decided I needed to speed up or I would miss out on other things happening. My parents did have a rule I was not allowed to leave the kitchen or do anything until the dishes were completely done, this made me pick up the pace drastically.

I dreamed for a dishwasher but it never came.

ANTM T-Shirt Designs And More said...

New to your blog. I'm having a ball reading it!

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