A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down

This afternoon, we began a very tedious and not-at-all-fun project in the garage.

I won't explain the project other than to say it involved moving hundreds and hundreds of very small pieces of kindling for our wood stove from one spot in our two-car garage to the other side, and then stacking it in neat piles.

*sigh*

It was by no stretch of the imagination fun. Shane and I decided to enlist the boys' help, and they were tired of the project about three minutes in, of course.

We talked about perseverance.

We talked about doing our best at all times.

We told them over and over how well they doing.

We talked about a couple of other things that came to me as I was trying my best to keep them involved and participating.

They began to move slower and slower and slooooooooower.

Finally, I was desperate.

"Guys, remember what Mary Poppins says? What does she sing when they have a task to do that seems hard and not very fun?"

**crickets**

"Remember?" I said. "She sings about (cue my singing here) 'A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down'...."

No one joined in my little tune. I persisted.

"'The medicine go dooooooooooown, medicine go down'....."

I looked at the boys.

Nothing.

Finally, Colin piped up.

"Yeah....." he said, and pointed all around to the large pile of kindling that was still left.

"But what I really wish is that she'd come and do that snapping thing."