The Sky is Falling

Sweetest darling Eleyna often sometimes drives us crazy. We ask her to do something and she falls on the ground in despair because her legs don't work or she's too tired or she's scared or her finger is sore, or.... you get the picture. For example, today she hurt her arm because, "I was trying to dance cool." I laid her on my bed to rest and get better, and she said, "It's never going to feel better. Now I'll have to be in your bed even until my birthday." And believe me, she really meant it.
So today I was trying to clean the house.
(Obviously, only because we're having friends over tonight. It's their first time coming over, so I like it to be extra clean so they know that I can clean it. Next time they come over, it won't matter as much. I'm actually feeling more stressed because this is a lady who cleans ALL the time. I asked her once what she and her little 4-year old do during the day, and she said something like, "Mostly he just watches TV or plays by himself because he knows that I have so much cleaning to do." So now I feel like she'll notice every spot of dust or every splotch of dirt. She's a very nice person, so I probably don't need to worry.)
Anyway, most of the mess was Eleyna's, so I tried to get her to help. I bribed and threatened and yelled (yes, I may have yelled), only to meet groans and moans and "I can'ts". So, finally, I took a break from her and wouldn't play with her because, "If you don't want to help me, I don't want to play with you". Awhile later, when I was feeling nice again, we played a game where we acted out something in the room and the other person guessed it, then cleaned that thing up. The room was clean in less than 10 minutes.

How do you get your kids to clean?

(I just have to add this because I was dying laughing the other night. It's probably only funny because I was in a funny mood after we were playing charades and Jake acted out Princess Jasmine. We were trying to convince Eleyna that she could actually sleep in her bed and not die or be eaten by giants. She was trying to sleep as close to the edge as possible because I was sitting on the floor by her and she wanted to be as near to me as possible. But we didn't want her so close to the edge that she'd fall off. She said, in the most pitiful, sad little voice, "The other night I was on the edge and I fell off and it was awesome." Yes, awesome... )