Everybody works

I've been having difficulty trying to figure out how to balance everything lately. Long story short, the housework has been skipped on numerous occasions.This doesn't really seem to bother anyone but me as long as the dishes are done, Henry hates dirty dishes so he has taken on the job of dealing with them every night. What a guy! :) This is not all to say that my house is a disaster all of the time though those who have visited me might very well say different, it is to say that I do pick up randomly I just don't really "clean" very often. Last week I decided that I'd had enough and that this had to stop. Why should I be the only one to clean up everything just because I'm home all day? I have two whining, crying, demanding little humans that I can not seem to get on the same nap schedule as well as a dog who also fits into that whole whining, crying, demanding thing too, to deal with all day every day not to mention that if the baby gets up an night anywhere from 1-4 times :-O I'm the one who has to get up with him because I am the food source. Again, not to throw my wonderful husband Henry under the bus, if things get bad enough in the house he will do things to help out but his "man sense" of when things are dirty enough to clean up is not as keen as my "what a dump!sense". He does the aforementioned dishes regularly which is a good thing because I typically don't get to it, and he takes out the trash and will pick up, do laundry and sweep the floor if things get hairy (which is pretty often because we have a dog... wasn't that punny? ... ok, maybe not). Our children on the other hand, seemingly have absolutely NO sense at all of when things are dirty. As long as clean dishes and clothes and food magically appear for them, they're good. This also had to stop. We've tried the weekly chores and commission and all that, but the only thing we are really consistent about is being inconsistent. We've had lists and charts to remind us, but again it just didn't really work. I ended up doing it all because I'd forget to get them to do it and the whole vicious cycle of "why do I have to do everything" continued. This has been made worse by the whole post partum thing and something had to give.
THE PLAN: I decided that consistency needed to be across the board, and the only way to do that was for us to all do everything at the same time. Sounds pretty crazy, right? Wrong. We now have mandatory clean up in this house, and that means that for one whole hour, yes 60 minutes, on Saturday morning we do nothing but clean. No video games, not t.v., no playing, nothing but cleaning. We have a brief meeting like a football huddle to divvy up chores which we do in fact write down in big letters so that the kids don't keep asking what to do next because they "forgot". We then "break" and run off to do chores. We divide the chores by who's best/most willing and most capable to do certain things. Jonas is a little too short to vacuum but he's the perfect height to scrub toilets, so Colin vacuums. Problem solved. Henry likes to deal with the kitchen and I like doing the bedrooms. Another problem solved. Since this is the way that chores are divided, Henry supervises Colin (and Henry) downstairs, and I supervise Jonas and Kinsley upstairs. I help Kinsley clean her room, and the boys clean their room jointly because quite frankly I don't like going in there as I can only imagine the mess that I CAN'T see.
THE RESULT: This may well be one of the best plant I've come up with in a long time. By dividing things up we each have more time to devote to our specific chores, therefore more gets done. Instead of only being able to pick up, I have time to pick up, dust and vacuum my areas. The bathrooms get cleaned every week now without fail because quite frankly sometimes I forgot. :( The floors get cleaned every week now as well because sometimes I just didn't get to it and I'd give up before I got there. Since we all get it done at the same time, we can then relax and enjoy the clean house all weekend and don't have to worry about when things will get cleaned. We keep an envelope of one dollar bills in the office and after each kid completes their chores to our satisfaction, and yes sometimes they have to go back and do them over, we pay them right then and tell them they did a good job. No more forgetting and hounding and all that. In one hour it's all done. This has changed my life at this point. I no longer feel pressured to do it all and I don't feel worthless because I don't get it all done. Everyone makes the mess, everyone should clean it up. It's a learning opportunity for our kids about self awareness (especially when they have to clean their toilet), hard work, and money. This week they were allowed to buy yo-yos at school with their money that they worked for because I wasn't going to spend MY money on something that they will either lose, break, or forget about. I'm hoping that this will be a good learning lesson too, we'll see.
Until the next time something blog worthy crosses my mind, peace out, yo! -Kellie-