CHEAP LABOR

Last night I went to bed around 6:30 to "read a little". 2 pages later I was history. I did wake up 2 or 3 times but decided to not get up until morning. I actually made it. By 7 am I felt well rested and full of energy, and that was after rolling over 2 times. 

After 12 hours of sleep and ready to tackle this house I decided it was time to torture the kids a little bit. I have been way to laid back about daily chores lately. Clean up your own room has not been stressed much and they rarely had to put away their own clothes. The girls had an easy life especially. Marie can whine like no other and I just didn't have the nerve to listen to it. Ella will happily help 9 out of 10 times. Plus, I wanted their clothes to be put away nicely and the just won't happen if they do it. The boys did rather well the last 2 weeks with staying on top of their room, Alex gets assigned little things that he prefers to do "later" and Matt unloads the dishwasher first thing every morning without ever being told. So thanks to Ella and Matt, Alex and Marie were off the hook. That would change today.

I had my mind set on making them each work for 60 min today. I did not tell them, I just announced that it was "help Mommy day" today. Matt had 26 min under his belt before the other 3 even got up. He was done by 11 am. That was the moment I took to announce that any kid that worked for a total of 60 min before 5 pm would be taken to the ice cream parlor. They were all rather excited. Matt hat a smug smile across his face as he had earned it already. Ella wanted to work off her 40 min in one stretch, Alex was confident but didn't get off the couch for his additional 49 min and Marie broke down sobbing (fake!) that that was "way to hard!" During the day Alex decided we could go without him, he'd rather play computer games. Marie spent more time whining then working and Ella realized she still had homework left. 

I sneakily assigned Alex 2 min chores to fill up his account, so when we told him he only had 35 min left to work he reluctantly got going.  Once he was down to 15 min he was excited and found jobs until he was done (smack at 5 pm).

Ella got done easily, homework and all. Marie got an extension and finally finished her 60 min by getting all the groceries from the car. The hardest thing for her was that every time I told her:"do this still and you are done," (referring to yet another 10 or 5 min block) she thought she would be done all the way. So she was rather frustrated. I will have to communicate clearer next time.

We made it to the ice cream parlor after dinner. Once there, the kids happily agreed to making this a Saturday tradition. Work for 60 min and then go to have ice cream. To sweeten the deal we agreed that it would even include the playground if they got done earlier next time. 

I must say that getting 4 hours of labor for the prize of 10 scoops of ice cream was a great deal!