Who Are These Kids?

Andrew does a fantastic job making his bed.



I don't know where my kids went but I'm keeping the new ones. OK, last Sunday was my breaking point. As I scurried around the house like Cinderella minus the helpful mice and Fairy Godmother, I noticed a bunch of people resting comfortably on the couch with nice full bellies. Familiar looking bunch...oh , I know them, they're my kids!
What's wrong with this picture? I looked at my husband for help. What's wrong here? I asked. How can they sit there and watch me run around like a flippin' fool doing everything? Doesn't something in their brains tell them , Hey this is wrong , get up and help your mother? I thought my dear hubby would have some words for those cute kids, like, Hey get off your butts and help your mother. But no, no. He did have some words for me. Here they are... It's all your fault. WHAT! WHAT did he just say to me!!!! It's MY FAULT!!!! I teach them right from wrong, I never told them to NOT HELP ME! And he continued.... Steph, he said, you never enforce anything. If you ask them to do something and they don't, then you just do it yourself. If it's going to take them longer to do it, then again you just do it yourself.

I hate it when he's right, but I am GUILTY as charged. I am a bit of a control freak mixed with a slight case of OCD. I've been known to actually clean up the toys as they are playing with them. That's a little weird. Any how... point taken. So what to do about it. We've tried things in the past to motivate the little darlings into doing their fair share around the house. I even tried to break the news as gently as possible to Olivia that she does not live at a BED and Breakfast Inn. This is home and she needs to participate in the cleaning of it. She took the news pretty hard. We've done the charts and allowance and the treasure box. We've tried all of Nanny 911's suggestions. Nothing worked. And Cinderella was getting fed up!
Finally, Sunday night I had an idea. If I can get one kid to come over to my side and see it my way, maybe the others would follow. I went straight to Sophia. She's a natural born leader. I asked her some simple questions... are you happy when mommy gets mad because no one is helping? Do you like the way things are right now? Do you want to change things? Are you with me? Her answers were, NO, NO, YES, YES!!! Great, she's with me.
OK, next question to Sophia. What will work? Her suggestion was to make a chore chart. OK, but we've done that before. It didn't work. Try it again, she said. And if someone doesn't do their chores they get more chores added. Wow that's a good one. See, she's got good ideas.
Sophia designed the chart and I filled in some chores. There are some basic everyday ones mixed with different ones like dusting, laundry, garbage. Now of course I need to enforce it, and not do the chores myself.
My expectations were low, but by golly the results were high! They are doing it. Even OLIVIA! I'm hearing things like, OK, Mommy and I'm coming. Where before I would get, I'm not doing that, that's gross, that's not fair... blah, blah, blah.
And the best part is, their reward is praise from Mom, A movie night or some other family activity. No out of pocket expense.I haven't had to raise my voice in almost a week. I'll take it for as long as I can, I am so enjoying this. And the best part is I am really enjoying my kids even more. And I actually think they like it too.
What can I say Peter, when you're right you're right!