The combination of my job, the house, paying bills, it being May and just plain being a mom is making me crazy and I need a wife. Well, if I can’t have a wife (at least not yet anyway) then I’m going to move to the next level of help – my children.
The good news is that I have three of them. The bad news is I’m going to have to commit some time to training them. There’s going to be a learning curve. There will be frustration. And most certainly, there will be things ruined and broken.
People always told me to teach my kids early to help around the house and I thought I did. Yet, here I am with teenagers – two of whom are still in the roll and shove phase of putting their clothes away and one who just doesn’t want to put them away until the 10th time that I’ve asked!
So, I’m going to have to find a way to make this transition easier. I’ve started by making a list of the chores each week (I got a stomach ache just looking at how many there were!!!!!)
With that in mind, here are the tasks I want to assign to my children:
Folding laundry. I know there will be a day when the boys will want to wear clothes that are not completely wrinkled and we need to start now in the learning-to-fold department. Their rendition of folded towels would make anyone cringe. This one needs work.
Unloading and loading the dishwasher. I’ve been a bit territorial about my dishwasher. I’m not sure where the comes from but I like it loaded a certain way. I’m going to have to let go of that “issue” and just show them the efficient way and hope for the best. I’m buying extra glasses just in case.
Food preparation. I’m scared. Scared of what they might cook. Scared of what they might do with the stove. Scared of what I might be forced to eat. And, scared of the clean up. But this is a biggie – they need to learn to cook. I am going to give each kid a night. They have to create a menu. No canned soups or packaged rice to heat in the microwave. I’ll take them shopping, let them get ingredients and off we’ll go. What happened to the days of Home Economics in school? Even the boys learned to do a bit of cooking and sewing!
Beds. Yesterday I stripped and remade the beds. What was I thinking? This is a no brainer.
So, I’ll give it a whirl and will keep you posted on the outcome. If you get a call from me wanting to go to lunch or dinner (near a laundry mat), please accept. I may be desperate!
Have a great day!
theyearof50 