Service or Serve Us!?

Honestly, why is it when you have this beautiful plan in your head that you are going to go and serve one of your neighbors, that your going to teach your children this wonderful lesson in serving each other, that they are going to cooperate and find the joy in giving, that you are going to walk away feeling triumphant in your good parenting moment only to have your children asking, no begging the whole time for a cookie (which was for after my triumphant moment) and to have them argue because one child isn't doing as much as the other child is and your back is begging for mercy and the poor sweet people you went over to weed their yard for are the ones picking up after you and your children are riding their scooters around oblivious to the "wonderful lesson" right in front of them. So you pretend like they did a good job and give them a dang cookie; then walk home feeling good that you kept your patience in check that at least one of them didn't start crying and thankful that you had friends there to help and take care of Ivy. Well, you still walk away triumphant...because you know that you helped lighten somebody else's burden. Now, I need to go get my back fixed.