The Five-Hour Cleaning Lesson

Yesterday was room-cleaning day. At 4:30 p.m., Adam tackled the upstairs bathroom (thank you!), I dug our room out from under three weeks' worth of washed-but-not-folded laundry, two garbage bags full of papers and miscellany, plenty of our kids' toys, etc. Amber and Karli were charged with cleaning their room, which happens weekly, so it wasn't a huge task. They've been cleaning their own room for a year now, so I didn't think it would be a big deal.
When we heard the complaints and could clearly see that nothing was being picked up, we told them they couldn't swim with their cousins until the job was finished. Two hours later, their room was an even bigger mess and they were both crying because they were hungry. We said, "Hurry and clean your room and then you can eat dinner," but that gave them absolutely no motivation. Amber kept lamenting, "We're just little kids and we don't know any better!" (her new favorite excuse for everything) and "It's too hard!" I replied with a kind but stern explanation that they've been cleaning their room for a year and that they were actually big kids (it's a relative term, right?). Still, no progress.
Finally, after Adam and I finished our jobs, fed ourselves and Rex dinner, put him to bed, sat in the hot tub, showered, and I did two more batches of laundry AND a pedicure, and after Amber and Karli had screamed and cried for an hour straight about cleaning their room, Adam and I went in to be available in case they had questions. It was so hard for me not to put the girls to bed and finish the job myself, but Adam reminded me to let them do it and at 9:25 p.m., the room was finally clean.
I'm really looking forward to the day when they realize that whining about tasks only prolongs the misery. I think I was nine or ten years old when the epiphany struck me, so hopefully we only have seven more years of these ridiculous events!