That's one way to get the blinds clean

I may have mentioned that yesterday was a rather long day. By the time Annaliese got home from babysitting for one of our church's small groups, I was really ready to crash out.

The following story is true. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 share a room. Shortly after I closed my bedroom door and started to change for bed, they came running down the hall to my room and started banging on said closed door. They had an insurmountable conflict. Thing 1 wanted the blinds closed going up. Thing 2, however, wanted the blinds closed going down. Notice they both wanted the blinds closed. They simply disagreed on which direction to turn the little stick.

Now, Thing 1 redefines "stubborn." He is as immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar. And I felt bad for asking Thing 2 if he could give in on this oh-so-important issue, but I think I mentioned that yesterday was a really LONG day? No dice. Both of them were sure their way was the ONLY way that they could possibly sleep. Sigh.

I was actually pretty ticked. But I had a Solomon-like burst of inspiration. I excused myself, shut the door, pulled on some PJ pants, opened the door, stomped down the hall, grabbing a chair from the school room. I dragged it into Things 1 & 2's room, pushed it to the window, and RIPPED THE BLINDS OFF THE WALL. Then I hauled the (seriously dusty) blinds back to my room, shut and locked the door, and went to bed.

And these guys?

Said not a word. Not a single word.

I heard some thumping around after that, but was determined to be done for the day. Next morning, I discovered that they'd nailed up a blanket with pushpins. Works for them, works for me.

When one of the things asked about having the blinds back, I told them, "Absolutely, I'll help you hang them back up as soon as you clean them." The blinds got cleaned, we hung them back up, and life moved forward. No lecture, no excuses, no whining, no punishment. I hope they learned a lesson in all this, but I can't be sure, of course. I've decided I rather like clean blinds. Maybe next time someone needs a consequense, we'll pull down some more (in a more rational manner, of course).