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The best part of waking up...
Matt has been at work/school from dawn til dusk these days and so I'm left with 3 meals a day, baths, transportation, entertainment, and chores for myself and 2 boys. What's different, you ask? Routine. Because Matt has been able to come home by dinner since we've been here in VA, it's thrown us all out of sorts and I've come to count on him to take off some of the burden of, say a bath or reading time for the boys. December came with the busy times of the holidays, school vacation, Matt's longer hours, illness, and then, inevitably, our routine disappeared. I put my foot down last weekend when in the very cold degrees of winter I was reluctantly pulling up my multiple layers of clothing to pull on my bright yellow dish washing gloves to do the nightly dishes. The cold air seeping in through the kitchen window sent chills of resentment and determination up my bunched sleeves. I made up mind. I was going to have Mason and Ethan start doing chores. Yep. I did it as a kid so why shouldn't they? I needed some help and doing all the cleaning while they were snug as bugs in their bed wasn't working. The next night we put my plan into action. They both love the kitchen (it's their favorite place to play too, unfortunately) so they grabbed a chair and pulled it up to the counter to help make dinner. After eating, I set about cleaning up and pulled on my gloves. Mason immediately took the sponge from me and started wiping down the table while Ethan put the leftovers in a tupperware. They set about loading the dishwasher and putting things in the fridges and wiping down the counters. It was awesome! Only once did we get all crazy and that's only because Matt made a surprise appearance halfway through. The boys forget whatever they're doing and greet Dad and jump up and down and want to show him things and tell him about their day. Fair enough. I just told him next time, he needs to sneak in! It is day 5 now and they know the routine. It is not a chore because we make it fun. On day 4, Mason asked if he could make the coffee for the morning. Sure!! Maybe on the 7th day, he could make a macchiato.
Matt has been at work/school from dawn til dusk these days and so I'm left with 3 meals a day, baths, transportation, entertainment, and chores for myself and 2 boys. What's different, you ask? Routine. Because Matt has been able to come home by dinner since we've been here in VA, it's thrown us all out of sorts and I've come to count on him to take off some of the burden of, say a bath or reading time for the boys. December came with the busy times of the holidays, school vacation, Matt's longer hours, illness, and then, inevitably, our routine disappeared. I put my foot down last weekend when in the very cold degrees of winter I was reluctantly pulling up my multiple layers of clothing to pull on my bright yellow dish washing gloves to do the nightly dishes. The cold air seeping in through the kitchen window sent chills of resentment and determination up my bunched sleeves. I made up mind. I was going to have Mason and Ethan start doing chores. Yep. I did it as a kid so why shouldn't they? I needed some help and doing all the cleaning while they were snug as bugs in their bed wasn't working. The next night we put my plan into action. They both love the kitchen (it's their favorite place to play too, unfortunately) so they grabbed a chair and pulled it up to the counter to help make dinner. After eating, I set about cleaning up and pulled on my gloves. Mason immediately took the sponge from me and started wiping down the table while Ethan put the leftovers in a tupperware. They set about loading the dishwasher and putting things in the fridges and wiping down the counters. It was awesome! Only once did we get all crazy and that's only because Matt made a surprise appearance halfway through. The boys forget whatever they're doing and greet Dad and jump up and down and want to show him things and tell him about their day. Fair enough. I just told him next time, he needs to sneak in! It is day 5 now and they know the routine. It is not a chore because we make it fun. On day 4, Mason asked if he could make the coffee for the morning. Sure!! Maybe on the 7th day, he could make a macchiato.
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