The kids are out of school today. Fun fun fun, but not so good on keeping me on track with daily tasks.
Today I:
Made bed.
Emptied dishwasher.
Cleaned up kitchen including the crock pot full of beans that I started yesterday at 4pm and forgot about completely until I woke up at 3am and smelled something. I went and unplugged them at that point. Thankfully, they were fine.
Last night I cleaned up the kitchen and ran the dishwasher.
I’ve done more decluttering today, which I’ll post about later.
Also today I:
Made a cave with the dining room table which was great fun until I finally had to tell them they had to get out since I couldn’t handle the constant loud sound of heads hitting the underside of the table. It wasn’t enough fun to be worth a trip to the emergency room.
Made impromptu science experiment/ice cream. So fun. If you’ve never made it, you just put some milk, sugar and vanilla in a small ziploc bag and then put that inside a larger ziploc bag that has ice and salt in it. The kids keep smushing it around until the bag with the milk freezes. It’s not Bluebell, but it’s fun and yummy.
I love it when the kiddos are home.
I started reading your Blog from your 1st post foward (basically the opposite of what you suggested, because I’m onery like that) and while you might address this in future posts that I haven’t gotten to yet. I have to ask.
Why aren’t your kids helping more? Or do they and you just don’t post it?
Because I read about you picking up their dirty undies from their bathroom and I think “her boys should be doing that”, they are old enought to be responsible for picking up bathroom clutter.
Just a thought.
Love the Blog!!!
Good question, Casey. I would definitely say that I more often post about the frustration of un-picked-up undies than joy over ones that are picked up.
The kids do very well when we’re in a good rhythm of them using their checklists. However, when I get out of rhythm, it spreads through the family. That was one thing I had to come to terms with in this process. It seems that when I’m focused and finally see the clutter, they’re often not around. I used to lament that they hadn’t picked up whatever it was, resolve to have them do it when they got home from school, and then completely forget. I decided to just go ahead and do it.
Does that make sense?
It does.
But it seems that by doing it yourself you aren’t teaching them responsibility and the consquences of their actions.
But I also don’t live your life so take all this with a grain of salt.
I know this is an old post, but I wanted to present an alternative view. If the kids are habitually not cleaning up after themselves then the problem will present itself again when the kids are home. So let them clean up when they are home, but feel free to clean up when they are not there, since it gives you peace.
I know this is way old, but I can’t resist commenting on this. I’m the oldest of 8 and I remember when I had been out of the house for years my mom came to a point in her life that she realized she needed to get control of the house first before she could teach the younger kids how to be responsible. At the time I felt like the above commenter, but now I understand. My oldest just turned six, so I’m hoping that I can get things under control quickly enough that I’ll be able to teach her relatively young. But I can’t expect her to be able to deal with the chaos that I’ve yet to conquer.
We just made this ice cream b/c I read your post. My 6 yr old daughter LOVED it. Thanks for sharing 🙂
I hope to read in the future how you finally figured out how to handle the unstructured days. Summer is coming up, and I know my to-do lists are going to fall apart as our schedules become more relaxed.