My oldest had a couple days off work last week and needed to get her hair cut, so she came home. When she lived at home she would squirrel up in her room every night and would volley comments and laughter back and forth with her sister, whose room is next door.

My room is just across the hall and I’d often enjoy listening to their banter, not always understanding what they were talking about, but amused all the same. It was a joyful sound. At some point, my youngest would go into her sister’s room, flop on the bed and proceed to annoy her. Sometimes it turned into good fun, sometimes my oldest really needed to get homework done and it was just a distraction.

Those were the days when my youngest didn’t have as much homework, so she thought, and she felt she could afford to waste a few hours bugging her sister. I knew my daughters’ schedules better then and would start my nightly ritual to yell at her to leave her sister alone and go finish her own homework.

“It’s not due for two days.”

“Get it done early then.”

“But it’s not due for two days and it’s only a little bit and won’t take very long.”

Yeah, right. I’ll remember that when you’re sweating into the night trying to finish that “little bit of homework.”

My oldest is out of school for the summer and has been since the end of April. So when she comes home, my youngest, who is a junior in high school, has a lot of homework. Now it’s my older daughter’s turn to flop on her sister’s bed and distract her.

The problem with this scenario and the latter scenario is both girls are more than willing to put up with the distraction because it’s a lot more fun than doing the homework. They never remember the pain procrastinating causes them.

I keep yelling from my room and reminding my youngest she needs to preserver, her school year isn’t over yet (like it helps).

“Okay!” I hear in unison.

Yet I continued to hear giggling and talking and nonsense coming out of her room.

When my oldest moved out, my youngest was talking about taking over her room because she likes the layout better. But after further contemplation, she said, “No, because then I can’t flop on her bed and bug her.” But my oldest moved some key pieces of furniture to her apartment from her bedroom, which, I guess made the space less viable for lounging, so they moved the party to my youngest’s room. Same kids, same nonsense, different room.

Same nonsense, same nagging mother, different room.

Soon my youngest will be out of school for the summer and it won’t matter and I can quit disciplining from my room (as if it’s effective).

I have to admit, though, now that my oldest is out of school for an undetermined amount of time (last I heard she was going to take a break) and just working a job, I still want to nag her to do something. Yet, when she’s here, she has nothing pressing to do. When my youngest finishes her school year, I really won’t have anyone to yell at.

However, when my oldest was here, we had some business/paperwork to take care of. So it was with great joy I had a reason to drag her out of bed the next morning.

My life felt complete. Who says moms don’t have more fun?

Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing and her daily blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com or on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh.” Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Lifestyles section.