Super-Mom after all??

Well, maybe I can offer a little bit of redemption after my last day of posting :-))

This post is actually about a much dreaded part of parenting (or maybe more so of being a child) - CHORES!!

I have to admit that I have not been very good at establishing chores early on. Yes, the kids always had to help out some, mostly in the picking up area, setting the table and so on, but there has not been any rhyme or reason to it. Kind of like the unspoken "don't go into the kitchen at dinner time because you may get hit with the 'oh, by the way, would you please set the table' " kind of thing.

I don't even LIKE the term CHORES - it SOUNDS like this dreaded beast in the corner no one wants to face, it sounds like something dull, and boring, and totally unnecessary!

Does anyone hear me?

What I remember about having to do chores, is that it always seemed like something that had to be done so we would not have time for the fun things. Okay, one of the cool things to do when I was a teenager, was to go to the public swimming pool and hang out on afternoons with no school. I grew up in a tiny little Swiss town, so the swimming pool was about 4 miles and 3 towns away. We actually went to school there too (from 6 - 9th grade, anyway). Well, I really wanted to belong to the cool crowd, too (never did...), but going there was not something that was looked upon favorably at our house. So one afternoon I really wanted to go, but I was made to do yardwork. THEN I was promised I could go. Well, that yardwork was plentiful, and by the time I was done, the pool was about ready to close, especially by the time I would have rode my bike there!). Can you see why I don't feel all warm and fuzzy about CHORES?

Gosh, I'm not so sure about the direction this post is headed, but this little bit of my past just kind of spilled out. So, bear with me, I'll get back on track eventually :-)

My other thought lately had been "Why did families in the olden days have so many kids that would help with the daily work, when I feel like the more kids I have the more work I have to do"????
Honestly, re-instating CHORES at our house has been a pure act of survival. I just knew the kids needed to pitch in in a WAY bigger way than they have in the past if I did not want to go crazy!

I had made this cute little chores chart quite a while ago, but we didn't start using it until just a couple of weeks ago.

This is what it looks like:
And this is how it works:

There are things EVERYBODY is responsible for. They are the basics, and they are on the yellow paper. We call that "Code Yellow". Code Yellow are things like "Wash hands before every meal", "open your blinds in the morning", or "brush your teeth after every meal". As I said, the basics.

Then Mike and I tried to find 5 things that need to be done before dinner, 5 things that need to be done after dinner, and 5 things that need to be done at bedtime. We let the kids pick - which is actually hard for me, as I have a bit of a take-over personality. But I'm learning :-)), and we switch weekly. As far as the picking, the only rule is that everybody has to have one of the three categories, and I made the tags diffferent colors for that purpose.

It's not foolproof yet, but it's amazing the difference it's made so far! When everybody does just a little bit, so much can get done that I don't have to worry about. We need more kids now!! Haha!

Our ultimate goal is to not having to constantly remind them of doing their chores, and we're not sure of what incentives or consequences to implement. Does anyone have any great ideas??? Somthing that works?

If you're interested in the particular chores we have up for grabs, here they are:

Before dinner:

• Pick up outside toys and make sure the garage door is closed
• feed the cats, and clean the litter box
• check garbage and recycling bins, and empty if necessary
• set the table
• be the kitchen helper (and I have something really cool for that in the works, but of course I can't give it away, otherwise it would not be a surprise for the kids!

After dinner:

• pick up living room
• pick up mudroom
• load-unload dishwasher
• sweep the kitchen floor
• clear the table

Before bed:

• pick up the bathroom
• clean the bathroom sink and counter (and wipe down all the gross teeth cleaning leftovers and the spit on the faucet..... ohhhhh is that a pet pieve of mine!!)
• put everyones dirty clothes in the laundry room
• pick a book to read
• lead prayer time

It's pretty cool to see how some of the dynamics of this work out. For example, Nina's chore this week is to put clothes in the laundry room. Well, our laundry room is in the basement, and she is scared of going down there by herself. I knew that, but she is the one who picked it, or it may have been the last one available. Every night one of her brothers has offered to go with her, so she would not have to go by herself.

The concept of working together is really neat to watch. Just tonight, as I helped in the little boys' room picking up hunderds of little iron-beads (or whatever they are called), Alex said: "Maybe we could ask the girls to come help us" (by the "girls", he meant Anya and her two friends that are spending the night, not Nina, who already had to help, very grudgingly on top of that :-)) ). The first thing that TRIED to come out my mouth was a lecturing "WELL, they did not dump them all over the floor!!!" (pretty loving, huh!!). But I bit my tongue and said "Sure, go ask them". Guess what, they were there in 2 seconds, helping to pick up!! I thought that was so cool (and yes, MUCH faster!). After that we read the book "Holey Moley" by Marcus Pfister (a SWISS author, very famous for his Rainbow fish books) - we just got it from the library - and as it was, it was about TEAMWORK!! It's a pretty cute story, and if you have kids that need a lesson in that, I can recommend it!

Now my favorite part about chores is the KITCHEN HELPER part. It's so fun to have that little bit of time with just ONE of the kids, and they can peel, stir, chop, or do other things like that. As I mentioned before, and I'm going to tease you with it just one more time, I have something so cute in the works for that one!!!!!!!! Can't wait for Christmas!

So, if you made it this far (see, I have so much more time for blogging now that I don't have to work so hard anymore!!!!!!), I want to know if someone can save me from the term CHORES!!

Can anyone think of calling it something else, something positive, something catchy?? You can even win a prize!! Not sure what, but I'm willing to fork out a reward for a GREAT idea!!

One GREAT idea that I want to share before I send this off, is this: A couple of years ago, during the summer, we would do a chore-hour. We went to the store and bought a new CD that we'd only listen to during chores. Not ANY other time. The pick at that time was "Veggie Rocks" (very fun if you're a Veggie Tales die hard!), and it worked like a charm. I watched one of our neighbor girls during that summer, and one day, before she went home, she begged me to wait with chores until she got to our house in the morning!! Gotta love stuff like that. Anyway, that was just an idea I thought I might as well throw out there!

So, get your thinking caps on, and help me get rid of the word CHORES - once and for all!!!!