A Mommy Story

The end of spring break is in sight, but oh it’s been a rough week. While we did get out of the house one day, I couldn’t sacrifice more of my work schedule for further outings. Besides, my odds for losing a child had already proven to be high, so I didn’t want to risk it again.

So by Wednesday at exactly 8:32am, the rounds of “I’m bored!” started, along with constant chatter directed at me while I was trying to focus on the computer. I offered them snacks, games, and whatever movies we owned or Netflix had online that they wanted to watch if they would just let me have a little time without needing me. And they took me up on all of them, and then still continued to express their boredom.

By 10am, I was desperate. So (with suggestions from others) I invented a new game: clean the house! Some families go to a beach for spring break; we do hard labor.

Amazingly, the kids seemed excited by it.

Both Cordy and Mira have chores they’re expected to do, but the tasks are limited. Turn off your bedroom lights, put your clothing away, clear your dishes off the table, let the dog out, etc. But neither have really participated in routine cleaning around the house.

I wrote up a quick list of what they could do with limited supervision from me. It was a surprisingly short list. Ah well, even 30 minutes would be a help for me.

And then? I put them to work.

They scrubbed the lower kitchen cabinets:

They took out the recycling. Mira dusted around the TV. They picked up toys and books in their rooms. I even showed Cordy how to mop:

Surprisingly, the best time-waster chore was asking Mira to take the laundry out of the dryer and put it on my bed. She took one or two items out at a time, so she had to make a lot of trips back and forth. Best. idea. ever.

Cordy did exclaim at one point that she felt like Cinderella, being forced to scrub and mop. She tried to say she felt like a slave, too, but I shut down that direction of thought. For a kid who has very few responsibilities, she has no right to claim we’re treating her like a slave.

Did they do a fantastic job cleaning? Not really. Sure, everything is a little bit cleaner, but the point was to keep them busy and get them interested in helping out more around the house. And I still had to oversee a lot more than I had planned, but hopefully that means I won’t have to oversee as much in the future.

Despite the Cinderella comparisons (which actually just made them sing Cinderella songs while they scrubbed), I think they did enjoy helping out. Mira asked for more to do on Thursday and I had to scramble to think of more chores.

I think I’d still prefer to have a cleaning service if I could ever have it, but I have to admit these two are much cheaper. They work for beans. Jelly beans.