...Like a clean litter box.

I want you to think about cats.

Yes, cats.

Those cute little fuzzy, four-legged meowing machines. Now, I want you to imagine a cat litter box. Sufficiently grossed-out, yet? Good. Here's the point I'm attempting to get at: Have you ever seen a cat around a freshly cleaned cat litter box? It is a bewildering sight. As soon as the pet owner cleans out the litter box (be it barely used, or putrid) the first thing the cat does is run and jump into their litter box, walk around in circles in it, more or less love on it, and then, of course, use it. It is like a potty-par-tay. The cat couldn't use the litter box 2 minutes earlier when it was dirty, oh no, they have to wait until it is fresh and clean to leave an unappealing little gift smack-dab in the middle of it in all its nasty glory.

With that little tidbit in mind (a la the 1960's TV show The Outer limits) , I present to you for your approval or disapproval, the following:

Saturday morning rolls around in all its 5am-why-the-heck-are-you-up-you-evil-little-offspring loveliness (sorry folks, I'm not very nice when I'm decaffeinated), and I decide it is time to change the household linens. Yuck. I've been meaning to strip the beds of their summer linens for oh, say, about a MONTH now, and I've effectively been able to procrastinate doing the deed, until then. B.J. had to work, so I figured it would be an opportune time for the kids and I to indulge in a 'Cinderella Saturday' (a working/cleaning day followed by fun in the afternoon).

I start my chore in the Peanut's room, and move through the house in a counter-clockwise fashion.

As I am stripping the bed linens I notice something peculiar: my children are ramping up and beginning to boing around the rooms like super-balls gone supernova. They are ecstatic about the sheets being changed. They can hardly wait to jump into the dirty linen piles and roll around in them--it looked something akin to Dachshund a finding a rotting salmon and rolling in all its putridness. Very weird.

Then, once the beds were 'naked' the kids would hop on top of them and bounce around madly hooting and hollering like demented little popcorn balls. Who knew changing the beds could be so entertaining and be such a cost-free fun activity.

This high-thread-count euphoria continued through each and every room. The children couldn't contain themselves. In no way, shape, or form could they manage to keep themselves off of my freshly made bed. Somewhat annoying, since I'd have liked to keep the beds looking neat for, oh, say a nanosecond! But, hey, they had fun. I got my job done. It was an interesting science experiment to see how similar kids with clean beds are alike to cats with a fresh litter box.

My parental learning curve just accelerated.