Cleaning up our act

Once a week my boys clean my dad's church. The pay is lousy, but it helps Grandpa, so they do it. Until this past week, I had never seen them in action. All I knew was that Jonah was in charge, they took out all the trash in the church, and it took them about 2 1/2 hours.

Then this past week, I took them to work and stayed to 'help'. What I did not know was that three boys, ages 14, 11, and 7, could run through the paces like a well-oiled machine.

Pushing a dumpster, replacing three different sized cans with three different sized bags, and re-filling soap, toilet paper, and paper towel dispensers was the order of business. Some rooms had four trash cans, all different sizes and all full of different 'stuff'.

You have to admire three boys for cleaning out trash bags in a woman's restroom...

They zoomed around the place, brothers in motion, pushing the dumpster like a scooter, giving each other rides, and picking up tied bags along the long hallway. It was beautiful.

They paused every now and again to have some fun along the way. One room, apparently the 'choir' room, has a piano. Gable found a piece of paper with an old hymn on it and proceeded to pace the floors, reading the old hymn televangelist style. He amened and hallelujahed very dramatically and Jack sat in a chair yelling 'glory!' every now and again.

It was totally inappropriate and insensitive and even disrespectful. Which made it all the more hilarious. Especially when Gable sat down at the piano and kicked out his leg and busted out a tune that was as horrible as it was loud.

I lost Jack, just to find him teetering precariously around the rim of the baptismal, the baptismal just happening to be filled with water. Apparently it is each boy's ritual to walk the entire rim of the pool before leaving for the week. No one has fallen in. Yet.

The last thing they do before they leave is shoot rubber bands into a large bridge that is suspended above the church's lobby. Looking up at the bridge, you can easily see the tangled web littering the bridge's expanse. Someday, we don't know when, someone will finally, finally notice all of the rubber bands dangling and scratch their heads wondering how they all got up there.

How the boys will laugh.

And so will I.

Seeing the boys work together, so at ease with each other, was enlightening. Realizing that when push comes to shove, they know how to work and they know how to have fun. It's not always easy, and it ain't always pretty, but they can get the job done.

In the midst of raising a teenager, of feeling like a new mom again, questioning my every move and feeling drained every single day, I felt like I had done something right.

Don't ask what being a good mom has to do with them zooming around the halls, but to me, at that moment, it just did.