"I'll need 150 one dollar bills please."

I mentioned awhile back about how we have had many forms of the chore/allowance system at our house.  Good news:  I have a new one!  I actually got the idea from a book I picked up at Desert Book the other day.  I'd tell you the name of it but I'm much too lazy to go upstairs to my bathroom and find the book.  (Yeah I know--I'm a total bathroom reader but I promised to be real so you don't get much "realer" than that revelation.)  Anyway, the author used the jar system to inspire/threaten her kids and so we're giving it a go around here.

Basically, each kid gets a jar at the beginning of the month with $30 in it.  Each day I check to see that my cleaning expectations are met.  If they are, they keep the cash.  If not, I take $1 out of the jar.  At the end of the month they get to keep what's in the jar.  The kids liked this idea but I think that's mainly because I offered them double allowance for the month of June to get the plan started.  (Normally they get their allowance at the beginning of the month and since this new system will work backwards with them receiving the money at the end I figured it was only fair to give them the expected cash at the beginning as well as at the end.  Also--it was worth paying extra to not hear them complain...)  So, this is what we agreed on as far as rules:

1.  Bed must be made--this should be pretty dang easy because none of them use top sheets.  I know, we're barbarians around here.  Someone said once, "they need to learn how to sleep with a top sheet so they are used to it when they get married."  Trust me--learning to sleep with a top sheet will be the least of their problems when they get married.

2.  Floor of room must be clear with clothes put away and trash in the garbage.  (Again, trash in the garbage should be a given, but remember, we're barbarians.)

3.  Towels hung and dirty clothes in hamper in the bathroom.  (Seriously, why is it SO difficult to just hang up the dang towels?)  I could do a whole post on our towel situation alone.  Maybe I will...

4.  All must be done BEFORE leaving for school.  (If they are smart they will clean up the night before.  If they were smart.)

My part in all of this is to actually check the rooms each day.  That's a pretty big commitment for me but I figure that it will be easier if I do it in the morning before my brain becomes to full of all the other things I have to do.  Like Facebook.  Or People.com.

So now you can go ahead and place bets on how well this system works.  Who knows?  Maybe I've stumbled onto the answer to all of our chore problems.  But probably not.

Progress Report and Cute Shoes

Well, I'd like to report that our house has transformed itself from chaotic and cluttered to controlled and clean.  I'd like to report that, but it would be a lie.  Because it looks pretty much exactly the same.  I managed to put away the clothes pile on the tub and I kept it clean for a whole day--a whole day people!  But the pile is back and it's even bigger than before.  I've also added  4 pairs of ballet flats to the pile.  (I have a serious weakness when it comes to ballet flats, just ask my husband.) In my defense, this week has been crazy busy with a band auction, traveling out of town,  general life nuttiness, and the acquiring of two new pairs of ballet flats (they are ADORABLE)  but my house is still a mess.

What I CAN report is that we have made some progress in the area of giving our kids more responsibility and I'm finding that I'm becoming more aware of the times when I tend to step in and do for my kids what they can otherwise do for themselves.  If you would have asked me a few months ago if I was a "helicopter mom" I would have said no and that would have been correct.  Because I am a full on "search and rescue team Mom." A kid forgets his lunch:  I'm running to school to leave it in the office.  Daughter lost her brand new ballet tights--I'm headed to the store for a new pair.  It's a sickness really.  As I've worked to be more aware we have had some successes and here are some examples:

1.  Handsome Morgan Boy VS Cranky Teacher-- we had a situation involving a scathing email regarding one of the Morgan Clan.  In the past, I would have tried to really get to the bottom of the situation and "fixed" the problem.  I've never been one to assume my kid is not at fault--in fact I usually assume my child is at least 75% at fault but I have always tried to remedy these situations when they arise. After all, though my kids aren't perfect they are pretty great and everyone should know this. This time, I did speak with the child and then sent a quick email to the teacher telling her we had discussed the situation and I was going to leave it up to the two of them to work out.  And guess what--they did!  Without my expertise.  Imagine!

2.  Personal Assistant--one day my schedule was packed with work, driving kids to lessons, making a meal for a friend, meetings, etc. (Shopping for ballet flats may or may not have been on the agenda.)  I really needed to do some basic grocery shopping and figured I'd have to make a late night trip.   Side note:  I HATE grocery shopping.  Like seriously despise it so I tend to put it off as long as possible. And then, as my 20 year old and 14 year old were headed out the door to the mall I had an "aha moment"--these boys were more than capable of going to the grocery store for me.  So I wrote them a list and off they went.  They came home later (after a few frantic texts regarding brands of spaghetti sauce) with the shopping done!  

I know that doesn't seem like a lot but I think it's a start.  After all changing your thinking is really most of the battle and I'm finding that more and more I'm stopping and thinking, "Is this something I need to do for them or can they do it on their own?"  Surprisingly, most of the time, they can do it on their own and I think they feel a sense of accomplishment when it's done.  That really is the whole point of this whole thing anyway--so maybe I'll ignore that clothes pile for another day:-)

Putting First Things First

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to travel to Utah for a Women's Conference sponsored by BYU, my alma mater.  The best part of the conference was that I got to attend with 5 of my sisters in law and my amazing mother in law.  I'm so blessed to be surrounded by such fabulous examples of womanhood.  I had spent some time looking over the different classes offered and found one that I just knew I needed to attend.  The title:  "Putting First Things First."

How fitting right?  Most of the time I feel like my brain is going in like twenty different directions.  I'm sure that at one point in life (most likely prior to giving birth to these six monkeys) I could see a thought thru from beginning to end.  Not so much anymore.  At any given time my thought process resembles an eight year old on a pogo stick.  Here's an example of the six thoughts running through my brain at this very moment:

1.  "How long ago did Carter take his pain meds and when is he going to stop drooling?"  (He got his wisdom teeth out this afternoon.)

2.  "What was it I planned to make for dinner tomorrow night and how many of the ingredients do I actually have in the house?"  (answer:  less than half and I went to the store yesterday!  And left the grocery list in the car...)

3.  "What time do I have to be at the school to help at the Bookfair tomorrow and how nice do I actually have to look?"

4.  "How am I going to remember to send the emails for the auction because I normally write my reminders on my hand but if I do that now in bed I'll wake up with 'auction emails' tattooed on the side of my face from where my hand was squished into my cheek all night.  (And I know this because it has happened on more than one occasion.)

5.  "Wait--what am I writing about??"

See?  It's a wonder I can string more than two sentences together coherently.  I'm a scattered mess!  And this gets back to the heart of the problem that started me on my blogging adventure:  how do I organize my life so that I can better help my children and be less frustrated with the state of affairs at the Morgan hacienda?  I think the answer lies in the title of that class, "Putting First Things First."  I'd love to tell you that I came out of that class with a plan for establishing my priorities.  I didn't.  Because the class was full and instead I wandered the cafeteria in search of a caffeinated Diet Coke--a fruitless search by the way, but I digress...

BUT--I have been giving some thought to what is most important to me and this is what I came up with:

1.  My spiritual/emotional/physical well being--because if I'm not taking care of myself how can I possibly take care of anyone else?

2.  My husband--after all when the kids grow up and leave (they WILL grow up and leave, right?) it's going to be him and I.

3.  My children--because they are only under my care for such a short period of time and I don't want to screw them up too badly.

4.  My church callings and assignments

5.  Other Volunteer assignments (Band, dance groups, community events, etc)

I'm still working out the kinks to how I'm going to make this work--if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.  Oh--and bring me a Diet Coke while you're at it...

PS--I read this post through the next day and realized that I only listed five thoughts, not the 6 I referenced.  I was going to change it and then thought, "Nope--that about sums it up..."

"If we had surveillance cameras this wouldn't be a problem."--Jordan

I thought it might be wise to give you a little background  on what I like to call, "The Evolution of the Chore System" here at the Morgan house.  We've gone through so many variations that the mere mention of chore restructuring brings instant eye rolling by the 6 monkeys.  Here are a few of the standouts:

Take Two:  This actually worked pretty well when we only had 4 kids and they were little.  I placed a basket at the bottom of the stairs where I threw all the stuff that belonged upstairs and every time they went up they had to take two things and put it away.  Then came kids #5 and #6 and I couldn't remember what day of the week it was let alone remember to hound them to "take two."

Mailbox:  I found this super cute mailbox at a garage sale and stuck it on the wall.  Each child had a slip of paper that they filled out each day that showed they had completed their individual jobs.  At the end of the week I tallied the slips and paid out.  Problem:  half the time they did their job and forgot their slips or I forgot to make new slips.  Also I never quite made it to the bank to get the cash out so I was always keeping track of their money in "the bank of Mom's head."  It wasn't so accurate...

Zones:  A couple of summers ago I divided the house into zones and made really cute little tags that hung in each zone with the name of the person responsible for cleaning that zone.  We rotated each week.  Problem:  This worked for a a few weeks and then came vacations, scout camp, girls camp, a long nap, etc and we never got back on the bandwagon.

And so it goes, and so it goes...

This time I decided to let the masses decide the new system.  And thus began "The Great Debate."  Some were in favor of policing each other but there was concern that could just bring on a whole lot of contention.  Some were in favor of instituting "family cleaning time" as necessary but others balked at the idea of not knowing ahead of time when that was coming (although you would think the foot high sock pile might be a clue.)  Jordan figured he had the perfect solution when he said,  "if we had surveillance cameras this wouldn't be a problem."  (Maybe the towels on the bathroom floor wouldn't be the problem but I'm pretty sure we'd have a whole different set of problems if I installed cameras in the bathroom.  Creepy...)

But what we all agreed was that our main problem is accountability and follow through on the part of us parents.  With piano lessons, scouts, church stuff, jobs, volunteer work, homework, and everything else, (did I mention naps?) I have the worst time following up every day to make sure the chores get done.  I mean--most of the time I can't even remember the name of the kid I'm talking to let alone remember what job they have, let alone if they've done it and what the punishment is if they don't get it done.

 For now, we've made some new assignments and I'm working really hard on making the kids clean up their messes (assuming I can sniff out who made them).  In the past it just seemed easier to clean it up myself and in the short term, it probably is.  But if you remember, a big part of the reason I started on this little experiment/journey is to help my children be more responsible, resilient, motivated people and I'm pretty sure that me doing the work for them is going to have the opposite effect.

And so, with that in mind...I'd love to hear what you are doing.  How do you structure your chore and allowance system?  What works for you and even what hasn't.  After all, we learn from our mistakes.

Full Disclosure

I had an aha moment today as I pondered this adventure of trying to gain control over my life/home/kids.  And what I found wasn't pretty.  Since pictures are worth a thousand words I thought I'd show you a few:

Now, I'm sure you are all DYING to know who made those messes right?  ME!!!  I made those messes!  And I'm dang good at rationalizing those messes.  The top picture of my Cricut project run amok?  "Well that's really Kennedy's fault--it was her school project I was working on.  Making The Toast Launcher 3000 took up so much of my brain power I couldn't possibly clean up the mess."

My sewing table?  "This mess is for a good cause--bibs for less fortunate children!  And I can't be blamed if the last time I actually sewed them was 6 weeks ago because I"M ON THE CRAZY TRAIN!"

And picture #3?  "At least 1/2 those clothes will most likely adorn my body in the next couple days.  Possibly. Besides, I'm saving precious time by storing them on the side of the tub--time I could spend sewing baby bibs!"

And therein lies the real problem at the Morgan house:  ME.  Yep--I said it and I'm owning it.  How can I expect my children to pick up their messes when I'm not picking up my own?  

Now I know what all you moms out there are thinking:  "But it's not the same, you're also keeping track of 6 kids and a husband."  And they are right but you know what? I hate excuses and I'm really really good at letting myself off the hook so the buck stops here.  Or starts here?  What's the correct term anyway?

And so Part 1 of my "From Chaos to Control" seems pretty clear.  It starts with me.  I've got to be the example.  And with that parting thought I'm off to uncover my bathtub.  Wish me luck.  

From Chaos to Control?

"Let me explain--no, let me sum up."

I need to get organized.  Before I go crazy.

I have a wonderful life filled with the best husband ever and 6 wild and crazy kids.  It is these 6 wild and crazy kids however, that started me on the "crazy train" as I like to call it around here.  The pressure has been building to organize our household and yesterday when I walked into the family room and picked up FIVE pairs of socks, FOUR dirty dishes and about A MILLION Nerf darts, I knew action needed to be taken.

Now, before you assume that we live in a den of filth, let me assure you that we don't.  The dishes generally get done every day and the bathrooms are cleaned (almost) every week.  We even vacuum regularly but it's not enough.  I want to raise strong, confident, able bodied kids that look around at an overflowing garbage can and think "maybe I should take that out."  And then actually take it out.

I've been doing some reading and studying recently about how as a society we are actually hurting our children by doing too much for them.  It comes generally from good intentions--we want our children to be happy and to maybe have some of things we didn't have. (My only daughter has 3 Barbie houses because I never got the Barbie Dream House.)  But in our zeal to provide so well for our youth are we actually doing them a disservice? I think maybe we are.

And so, what now?  How do we teach our children to be accountable, resilient and to for heaven's sake PICK UP YOUR SOCKS?  The short answer:  I'm not sure, but I want to start and so I have come up with a game plan of sorts.  I figure that by making it public I'll have some sort of accountability because while I seem to be fantastic at organizing fundraisers, church activities and large events, I am falling short on the home front.  And so here it is--my attempt to take control and more importantly, have my children learn to take control.

THE OBJECTIVE:

Take control of the chaos and teach the kids to be capable in the process.

THE PLAN:

Make a plan.  Seriously--at this point I just know we need to implement change.  I'm still working on how to implement said change.

Yep--there it is people.  My big idea.  Stay posted---big things are coming!