The process of preparing for a showing

As you probably know, my family is selling our house, so there are people constantly coming to look at it. This obviously means that the house must be spotless. We can't do what we would do if people were coming over for lunch. (Throw everything in my parents' room, because no one looks in there.) We can't do that because the people are going to look in my parents' room. And every other room in the house. So we'll get calls about an hour before the people are supposed to get here, and we have to scour the house and get out before they show up. Last weekend, we had some missionary friends from Hungary over for the weekend. My mom left early Saturday morning for a high school reunion, and my dad and the other adults left to go see our new house. So here we were, seven kids ranging from 14 to just over 1 year old. With no adult supervision. Yeah. Thankfully, everyone was content watching a movie most of the time. We started fixing lunch around noon. We ate lunch and then went and sat in the living room while our lunch settled. At approximately 1:20, the phone rang for about the tenth time that morning. No exaggeration. I think the phone probably rang more times on Saturday than it did for the rest of the week. Anyway, the phone rang, so I picked it up.
Caroline: Hello?
Momma: Hi, is this Caroline again?
Caroline: Yup, what's up?
Momma: I have a big surprise for you!
Caroline: Oh! What?
Momma: There's a showing at three.
Caroline: Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. OH NO!
All of the kids in the living room: What? What? What's wrong? What happened?
Momma: Get everyone to help you clean up.
Caroline: Okay, bye.
Momma: Bye.
I hung up the phone.
Caroline: Okay! All of the Welsh's stuff needs to go in the entry so that we can load it into the van as soon as ya'll's parents get back. Everything needs to be put away and the floors need to be vacuumed and swept. If no one knows where something goes, it goes in either the washing machine, the dishwasher, the oven, or the - who's at the door?
Someone was knocking on the door. A kid (please don't ask who, I couldn't say if you paid me) opened the door before I could say anything else. It was Mr. and Mrs. Welsh. We commenced to a very hectic and chaotic cleaning job. It went something like this:
Tait (oldest Welsh): Mom, Daddy, there's a showing, and we have to have the whole house clean.
Caroline: William, go clean your room.
Mr. Welsh: Okay, we need to eat lunch.
Connor (middle Welsh): We just ate, there's stuff in the kitchen.
Caroline: Sarah, go striaghten up the bathroom.
Sarah: K.
Mrs. Welsh: Connor and Hamilton (youngest Welsh), you two take turns vacuuming.
Tait: I'll go take the baby in his room and clean it up while I take care of him.
Everyone began to pack things into bags, put things on the floor away, and hide things in the washing machine. (Okay, we didn't really hide things in the washing machine. Or the dishwasher. Or the oven.) I began on the kitchen. Everything went in the dishwasher. Everything. Dishes, I mean. I don't think I've ever seen it as full as it was then.
We finished cleaning around 2:30. The Welshes left and the four of us were left to wait for our realtor to show up. She had to take care of us during the showing because neither of my parents were there. That little adventure is a different story. Maybe I'll tell it some other time. :)

~Caroline