Home Improvement Efforts

I have spent the past few days making any minor improvements I can to our house as we prepare to put it on the market.  Among my attempts to better the looks of things:  scrubbing walls with "Magic Eraser" sponges, clearing and re-organizing the contents of the kitchen cabinets, and doing a bunch of touch-up painting.  Today I spent an hour painting in the stairwell, and when I was finally done, I was disappointed to see that it doesn't actually look that much better.  White paint over old white paint on a ragged, imperfect surface can only do so much, after all.

The kids were divided in their reaction to my so-called improvements.

JULIA: Mom?  What are you doing?
ME: I'm just looking at the painting I just did.  I don't feel like it looks any different.
JULIA: (taking a look) Wow!  It think it looks a LOT different!  It looks so much better!

A minute later Madeleine joined in to knock me down a few notches.

MADELEINE: Mommy, I miss our OLD door.  Julia, don't you miss our old door?
JULIA: What's our "old door" supposed to mean?
MADELEINE: The door before Mommy PAINTED it.  Our old door looked MUCH better.

Julia, my ever faithful cheerleader, wasn't about to let me get discouraged about wasted efforts, however.  She continued to pump me up about my accomplishment.


JULIA: Mommy!  I think it looks so much better now, because there's not, like, COFFEE STAINS and stuff all over the wall!
ME: Yeah, that's because I painted over the coffee stains.  But I still don't think it's that much better.  I just keep looking at the walls and feeling like all I can see are spots where it still looks bad.
MADELEINE: (cheerfully) Well Mama, the DOORKNOB looks REALLY bad.  You should use the Magic Eraser on the doorknob, because it looks so BAD!

I can always count on Madeleine to be brutally honest with me.

And in case you're wondering why there were coffee stains on the walls to begin with, it's because I once dropped my entire coffee mug down the stairs and it splattered the walls and then I didn't do a good enough job wiping up the spill.  The hallway walls are, of course, only one of many surfaces upon which I have spilled coffee.  And I wonder how Madeleine could possibly be such a klutz.

I attempted to understand exactly what Madeleine doesn't appreciate about the after-effect of my painting.

ME: So Madeleine, you don't think I did a very good job painting, huh?
MADELEINE: I think you did a good job!
ME: Oh.  But what do you think looks bad about my painting?
MADELEINE: Um, the PAINT, because I liked the paint when it was our OLD door.  (Forlornly) And now it's our NEW door.

Okay.  So she thinks I did a good job painting, except for the painting part.  So basically she is giving me an A for effort and an F for achievement.

Sigh.  Oh well.  Haters gonna hate.  At least I will always have Julia to fluff me up when I need it!