The Clean Up

After our recent grandchildren trip, we returned to home base and had the opportunity to catch up with our other grandchildren (the twin boys) this summer.  Mama attended a funeral service for a friend’s grandfather about an hour away and enlisted our help since the five year old boys are not known for their ability to quietly sit for this length of time, especially after being confined for an hour in a car.

Since it is summer and the days are very warm, we decided a water activity was called for and set about developing a plan to keep everyone cool and entertained.  After the last trip, the motorhome was in dire need of washing since we were parked next to major highway construction with hot, dusty, windy conditions present during our stay. 

The logical thing to do was to enlist the two guys help in giving the motorhome a bath.  However, most logically thinking people would say this was a crazy idea because they are barely tall enough to reach the bottom rail on the coach.  The other part of the argument would be the attention span could not possibly last to finish the assignment.  Typically I would agree with both these statements and even speculated as to how long this activity would capture their attention.

In a discussion with Bibi, I told her I thought one of them would last between 5 and 10 swipes of a rag against the side of the coach.  The other one would last longer (not sure how much longer) until he was distracted by the first one’s newer activity that beckoned him away from the “fun” of cleaning the motorhome with Gran.  Realistically I did not expect more than 30 minutes total, if that, of participation.

We were pleasantly surprised as to the interest shown and the endurance to stay on task by both boys.  Of course, the actual washing did not commence immediately.  When presented with two water hoses to begin the rinsing and wetting process on the motorhome, each hose manned by one of the boys, it did not take long for this to degrade into a full-fledged soaking and water fight.  It was like giving each of them a “water blaster cannon” with an unending supply of ammunition.  In fact, the supply was unending as will be evidenced by the water bill later this month.

Did not take long for the water fight to start!

One of them was getting the better of the other, so I had to step in and ‘even up’ the playing field by using my chosen combatant as a shield as I helped direct the spray directly at our antagonist’s face.  The technique worked rather well until they decided to team up against me.  I had not thought of that possibility before coming to the aid of the wetter of the two.  Note to self, leave future water fights to the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest, and you will be much drier.

Take that Shawn boy!!!

After getting past the obligatory water fight with hoses, we commenced to washing said motorhome.  A bucket of suds was prepared for their use and a separate bucket for my use.  I did learn from earlier experience, their bucket of soapy solution would be a lot dirtier than mine.  This is due to the incessant dropping of the cleaning rags onto the ground picking up all matter of dirt, grass and rocks.  So the first rule is to use your bucket and not mine.

Fill em up, boys.

We set about scrubbing the front first as this is where all kinds of interesting things (i.e. bugs) end up against the body of the motor home and stuck in the grill.  What better way than this to keep a five year old boy's attention than to present him with dead bugs to identify and retrieve.  Of course, they did not see my obvious ruse to get the maximum scrubbing power from them with the ongoing chant of ‘get off of there you dead bug’ and the accompanying reward chant of ‘take that you dirty old bug.’  The enthusiasm exhibited during this process was astounding.  If I could bottle that and sell it, there would be no material want not met in our lifetime.

Look at them go.

......and go

and go some more!

Being the conscientious supervisor, I recognized the importance of taking a break to ensure a happy and eager workforce that could go the distance.  As the boys stretched out in the sun to let their wet clothing dry, they began to down a Sunkist orange drink.  Carbonation and young boys inevitably lead to a belch.  With Shawn it is most loud and intentional with the main purpose to entertain the ladies present.  Try as we could, Konnor and Gran could not outdo Shawn and I declared him the winner in the belching contest.  His response, "yeah, I know.  I win at everything."  So we further declared him., 'King of the World.'  This is a moniker he gladly accepted and thought it mighty fine to be the King of the World.

Break time.

Champion belcher in action, a/k/a King of the World and still undefeated champion!

All good things must come to an end, but I was the one left speechless by the length of time devoted to this cleaning adventure by the boys.  All told, they spent about 3 hours working with me on cleaning the coach.  Now this did include some distractions such as Shawn would find a dead bug and proceed to use the water hose to ‘wash’ it down some drains I have installed in the driveway.

When the bug would drop into the drain (either by force of water or if that was not quick enough he would manually pick it up and drop it in) he would exclaim his parting words, “Goodbye dead bug.”  Konnor was our stay on task guy, even if it meant washing the same tire 20 times.  There was even a small interlude to get Bibi involved in an Easter egg hide and seek game ( a year round activity around here using plastic eggs).  But eventually they returned to complete the task with me.

When we finished the motorhome, they had not had enough cleaning so I suggested they clean up the John Deere 4x4 (a miniature version they are fond of riding) since it was dirty.  They were determined to clean every square inch of the JD.  Interestingly enough, they were much more focused and planned their cleaning more strategically than when cleaning the motorhome.  I suppose size is the plus factor, since they are on a scale with the JD and actually tower over the height of the car.  As you can see from the pictures, they did a bang up, super cleaning job.

Cleaning is so much fun!

Especially when you are having fun with each other.

We had some good one-on-one times with them telling me all about their July 4 trip to watch fireworks with the additional fun activity of visiting the Build-a-Bear workshop.  Their vocabulary is expanding rapidly but not as fast as needed to fully express their feelings and sentiment.  An example of this was their response to what did the fireworks look like and how did they sound.  After a few minutes of excited and animated gestures by both of them, it was obvious they had run out of words and sounds to fully describe the events.  That is when Shawn abruptly stopped and said, “You need to go with us to see what we see” followed by Konnor’s full agreement statement when he said, “Yeah.”

What a great day.  I only hope they remember and treasure the day as much as I will.  Bibi was manning the camera so she has her own special memories created as she snapped pictures.  It is the little things in life that add special spice.

Not all Adventures in our Adventurer happen on the road.  Sometimes they happen right in the driveway.  We are off soon to see the next step in our middle grandson’s baseball season as they participate in the Dixie State Tournament attempting to win it and secure a spot in the World Series Tournament that takes place later in the month.  We will give a report on this activity later. Until then, adventure on!