Recently at breakfast I was talking to the kids about Saturday chores. This was a breakfast that was around 11 am mind you. Yes, let's talk about working and being productive contributing members of society! I got a few rolled eyes in response. Corey came to my defense "Your mother has a dream... of everyone cheerfully waking up on Saturday mornings to do yardwork together." "...at 8 am!" I added. Yes, that is my dream. My dream has come true once or twice. And I do think that they all know that this is my dream, even the little ones ~ proved by their responses to this Mother's Day questionaire two years ago - my dream is for us all to clean! Together! And happily! They did good 3 weeks ago. We had a day where we attempted to get all the grass off of the dirt and get the bald dirt spots off the grass - done by a few transfers and a filling the garbage bin to the brim with grass and weeds. We also transferred the rocks from one trail here by the house and moved them to the trail that is used more often, between us and our back fence neighbors. Cute! That productive Saturday gave me hopes for the weekends of work ahead of us.
But then 2 weeks ago it rained on Saturday and thus the grass wasn't mowed and no grass was yanked. Again, this past Saturday, it rained. Luckily the rain stopped by 11 and the grass was dry enough by the afternoon so I still had a chance to put my slaves to work. We had to get out there, cause this past Saturday chore day was the last big chance to clean up before the Bulk Clean up today.
Well, the energy to get going was killed early with the rain. Plus the three band boys had to go down to American Fork for a CCS open house that went until 2, so with my strong boys and Corey gone that also shot the morning. Around 2:30 everyone was home and I dragged them all in for a family council. We needed to discuss how we were going to attack life this summer, schedule wise. What would be a chore system that works? (Cause their performance with the Kid Cash thing this week was pretty pathetic). Were they going to sleep in until 11 everyday? I asked "What does your perfect day look like?" And Ethan replied "Sleep in until 12, eat cereal all day, walk around doing nothing..." "You really think that would help our home life be better? What would happen if we all lived each day like that?" Nice Eth. Look, I have a responsibilities too. I have to make dinner, I go buy the food. Your father makes the money. If we didn't do our jobs, things would fall apart quickly, right? Well, you kids have responsibilities too. And we're not just giving you jobs so we can give you punishments if you don't do them, I actually need your help! I really truly need you to do these things and want you to do them, willingly. During the next 10 minutes we make a tentative summer family schedule and the kids all committed to follow it the first week of summer vacation, just so we could see how it goes. It includes going to bed at 10:30, lights out at 11, and getting up in the summer at 8. Torture, I know. They just have to do it one week, and then we'll adjust if necessary. I got verbal commitments in the affirmative, but didn't get them to sign a contract. I think I will need a written agreement though - I plan on doing that this weekend at family council. Summer's almost here, we just need to hang on a few more days.