The invite in Stuff

I pulled Mercer aside yesterday and told him that I felt like as a whole family we’ve been bad about changing and washing the bed sheets as often as we should. I told him that I’d like him to make it his responsibility for getting everyone’s sheets washed every two weeks. He’s already the one that does the laundry, so this is just an extra step for him. But I also want him to be in charge of this, meaning I want him to remind each of us that we need to remove our sheets and give them to him to wash every two weeks.

He’s been great with the laundry responsibility since I gave it to him a month or so ago, as I knew he would be. I think he’d rather have a chore like that than many of the other options. And since I try to keep things even and fair, I took away another chore that he had been doing since the sheets will make up for it.

Of course, I had an ulterior motive for this. I’m concerned about his wet sheets and apparent bedwetting and I want to at least have this call to his attention the need for clean sheets. This doesn’t solve the problem, I realize…

In other news, I got a text yesterday from Megan, the neighbor we had over for dinner last week. This is the exact text, which I post here just to point out how weirdly wordy it was: ” Hi Libby! It’s Megan next door. I don’t know if this is weird or not, but I was thinking about taking a hike this weekend somewhere in the western part of the state before all the foliage is completely gone for the season and I thought I’d invite you and your kids along. I have no idea if you guys are into hiking or not, so my feelings won’t be hurt if it’s not your thing, but I figured I’d make the invite. Let me know. Thanks!”

I read it a few times and laughed a little to myself thinking that it was perhaps the most formally worded text message I’d ever received.

I have a bit going on this weekend, so after giving it some thought I responded that I probably wouldn’t be able to join her but I’d check with the kids. When I got home last night I mentioned it and all three seemed interested. It made me kind of happy/proud of the kids for being open to spend some time with our lonely neighbor.

Then my mom instincts starting kicking in and I began wondering if I really trust Megan with my kids. I mean, I trust her with Olsen in the sense that Olsen’s an adult and can take care of herself, but maybe not as much with Mercer and Harry. But then, if Olsen is there everything should be fine. I think. I’m probably worrying about nothing. Megan seemed responsible.

So I guess we’ll see what comes of that.