This Saved Our Lives

Do you remember the day when you were going crazy because you couldn't get all of your commitments done? And I don't mean all the ones outside of the home, but just commitments as a mom - like clean bathrooms, laundry, dinner on the table, kids lessons, etc. Was it today, yesterday or what you expect tomorrow to be where you see yourself on your knees cleaning up whatever it is on the floor, trying to get through mounds of dishes, make a healthy dinner, listen to one (or more) kids reading, helping them with homework, smile for your husband coming home, oh, and trying to keep a positive attitude for yourself. Yeah - I was there. And guess what? I wasn't succeeding - in absolutely no way, shape or form.

I had a previous manager that had 10 kids - 8 boys, 2 girls. And he gave me the secret......are you ready for it? The Parenting Breakthrough by Merillee Boyack.

Holy cow! This book is amazing and it literally saved our lives. By saving my sanity as a mom so that I could be there for my kids in a supportive, nurturing way instead of always being stressed - or just living in a complete mess.

Today:

• Our 12-year-old is now doing our laundry (we have a few pink whites, but it's a lesson taught/learned). This is our third rotation, so he knows how to clean bathrooms - inside and outside of the toilet and all, clean up kitty litter, wash dishes - clean the kitchen floor and all, and take out the garbage and recycle. He also knows how to make his bed and clean up his room (mostly).
• Our 10-year-old is now cleaning our bathrooms (inside and outside of the toilet and all) and taking out the garbage and recycle. After our third rotation, he also knows how to clean bathrooms, wash dishes - clean the kitchen floor and all, and wash our clothes. He doesn't do the kitty litter because he is allergic to the cats, so he is our entire house garbage taker-outer. He is also responsible for his bed and room.
• Our 9-year-old has also been in on the full rotations. He is learning the kitchen at the moment and has some 'training' to continue with, but he is trying and he does a good job. He also makes his bed and takes care of his room.
• Our 7-year-old is in charge of cleaning out the kitty litter and setting the table (of course not at the same time because that is disgusting). He already mastered organizing the shoes each day - what a simple thing, but it helped so much. He is pretty good at making his bed and picking everything up in his room as long as he has encouragement.
• Our 5-year-old now organizes the shoes and we are still working on getting her bed made and picking up her clothes/toys. We really have to work on motivation for her - she specifically likes to have someone doing it with her. I'm thinking about job-sharing partners (I saw it on Super Nanny once) to get her to complete her chores consistently.

Our last rotation, we had each of the kids 'train' their brothers on how to do the job. It was pretty great to watch them take pride in what they learned and teach it. We also noticed what the kids missed and probably what should be reviewed with them.

What I like about the approach in the book is that it is all about creating self-sufficient, independent adults. I hear awful stories about kids on missions or in college that have no idea how to cook or do their own laundry. I even heard a story about a woman whose mother came over and cleaned her house while her husband was at work. What!?! Flabbergasted!

The book gives specific breakdowns of what kids can do at what ages. Who thought a 3-year-old could make their own sandwiches? I didn't. But show them how and see them light up. It's pretty cool. It also goes over things that I didn't even think of teaching the kids because I was never taught them.

I'm excited to continue to watch my children grow and subsequently learning some of these things ourselves. :o)

Definition of Insanity...

....trying to inspire kids to do chores. Now, I'm using the word 'inspire' loosely here, but seriously! Ever since school started back, it has been a nightmare! We were awesome during the summer because we said, "You have until noon to get your chores done. If everyone gets them done, we'll go do something fun: swim, ice skate, movies, friends/cousins, etc." It was great - we slowed down when Corbin burned his hands, but it still worked well.

Then school started. And you would have thought we transplanted their brains. All cooperativeness and get-'er-doness went out the window. It has been a little maddening - a lot of reminding, too much screaming, punishments, etc. It was NOT working!

So back to the definition of insanity:

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Yup - to a 'T'. Still trying to the same approach we have for years. Do it - great, you get some privileges....pretty much whatever came to mind and not necessarily the most consistent. Don't do it - Mom's head would spin around three times and unpleasantness would spew forth. Excuse the imagery, but this is exactly what how I felt.

I reached out to friends on Facebook and asked how they did it. A co-worker from my last job reminded me again of www.myjobchart.com. This website allows you to put in your kids chores, give the chores points, then put in rewards that can be redeemed with those points. Simple. Straight-forward. But I had not taken the time to really set it up. When we found out that one of our boys was getting a big 'F' two weeks into the term, we decided that something had to be tracked and that he needed to be incentivized to do better. So, I put in the whole hour that it took to set everything up for each of the kids and Voula!

Granted it's only been a couple days, but the kids are ripping it up! Leon gets daily texts when the kids earn rewards. He can now come home and praise them for getting their chores done without having to even check up on it and ask questions. He mentions it as he walks in the door. We both can see what types of things motivate the kids. Right now, it's time with Dad. That was humbling. Neither of us knew that they were really wanting that, so we didn't set up time to make sure they got it.

We also rotated the chores a little bit. Michael is now doing laundry, Corbin is cleaning bathrooms and garbage/recycle, Kohner is doing dishes/kitchen, Derrick cleans out the kitty litter and sets the table (after washing his hands of course), and now Eowyn has a daily chore of organizing the shoes in our coat closet. It's so great!

If you are struggling with how to recognize kids for what they are doing right (and take the load off your shoulders of keeping track of everything), I highly, highly recommend this site.

Cherry on top: We all sat down tonight for a couple hours and the kids redeemed their rewards, the house was clean, I hadn't yelled (mostly), and Leon knew his kids wanted to be with him. Seriously....who could ask for more?

Couponing...for real?!?

Yup. For real.

I looked into this a year or so ago and thought, no way. But then my sister-in-law (thanks, Melissa) invited me to her house and I checked out how she was doing it. And it was a really easy way of organizing coupons - just date them, combine multiple copies, and file away. Yes. That is how I can 'clip' coupons. :o)

So, I got four copies of the Sunday paper and I've been filing coupons for a couple weeks. It took me quite a while to figure out how to take the list on Grocery Smarts and find what I needed. I made a grocery list for the next two weeks, but it didn't really match. So I thought, "why don't I just find some things I know I'll use and go shopping for those to see if I want to do this more....."

AND I went on my first shopping trip today! Check out the picture to see what I got for ~$65!

Can you believe it!?! JUST the cans alone would cost $65! OR JUST the non-food items alone would cost $65! And I got it all for $65 and saved about $53!!!!!!!

Needless to say, I'm hooked! And I'm really excited that we now have about a year's supply of toothpaste, bars of soap, and razors for Leon (just from this one trip). Totally cool. (I just have to figure out how to match my list of menu items to the list of sales/coupons better.)

I'll let you know what happens the next time I go. Happy shopping!

One Step at a Time

After feeling completely overwhelmed for the month of September and going into October, I finally am feeling better and actually have a desire to get things done. Hallelujah! (I think kicking the strep helped and possibly even a sinus infection.)

As I've looked around the house, I realize that I have a lot of project in-the-works. Mom - does this sound familiar? :) So, I decided that I needed to complete one at a time, as much as I was reasonable. So, right now, I am spending time to get the can rotators completed.....I need about 25 of them. Whew! It's quite a bit of work and I have to let the glue dry before putting the cans on. Needless to say, I'm learning a little bit of patience.

At the same time, I've gotten Halloween costumes done (luckily not a ton of sewing this year) and I have to get two birthdays planned and executed. Ah, October, such a busy month for us. But I love it and wouldn't replace it for anything. The kids really enjoy it and I love watching them have fun.

Next, I'm hoping that I'll be able to repaint the living room, entryway, and hall. But we shall see what's in the budget for new paint. I'm excited that I have a plan though. I created a 'mood board' inspired by this website: http://moodboards.younghouselove.com/ and am looking forward to seeing it come together. It's been a fun process of discovering what Leon and I like and hoping we can find something that will look good together.

I can't believe what I used to get accomplished......I've got to find my groove again. :)

Small Accomplishment

Today, I had a small accomplishment. I really needed it.

I've been working on getting more food storage, but we need to organize it a little bit better.....have you seen the cost of those metal rotating shelves? Outrageous!

We have metal shelves, but they don't rotate. I came across this http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2009/02/16/build-your-own-can-rotating-rack/ and thought "hey, I can do that."

And I can. And I did. It took a lot longer than I would have liked, but I have made eight of them and they are more efficient than just stacking the cans (space or rotation). So after days of working on them (not continuously), I'm feeling accomplished.

Although, I need to make about 12 more (at least). :)

Whoa - This is Hard!?!

Okay, being at home is challenging! This summer was so great with the kids. We really did well, but now that we are back in school - forget about it!

I've come to the conclusion that I'm not good at this stay-at-home Mom thing. I love, love, love being part of a bigger machine that produces a finite goal in which there is recognition. Yeah, NOT what you get at home with repetitive tasks and constant needs with less than gracious receipt.

Which means only one thing.....I need to get inspired!

How do I go about doing that?

The Wisdom of Food Storage

In my religion, food storage and self-reliance has been taught for years. It can be a daunting task to store food and water for you family for any length of time.....one-month, three-months, twelve-months.

But let's throw out the religious aspect - for giggles.

Having food storage provides peace of mind.

What kind of things are in food storage? Food for meal preparation, water storage, non-food items, and a few extra dollars, etc.

So, let's take a hypothetical situation that your tire on your all wheel drive van goes flat. Little do you know, that with an all wheel drive vehicle, you have to replace all four tires at the same time. No matter what!?! Seriously? I had no idea.

So, four new tires can be anywhere from $250 to $500+. If you don't have a good reserve, which we sometimes do and we sometimes don't, then where is that money going to come from. We don't have credit cards, so it can't go there (good decision on our part). Lucky for us, when these types of situation have come up, we can pull that amount from our food budget.

.....BUT only because we have food storage in the garage. Without that, we would have been up a creek.

Not to mention it's Sunday night at 6PM and you just ran out of toilet paper. Hmmm, sure is nice that we have some in the basement and don't have to break the Sabbath to run to the store for that item. Or better yet, a child gets sick and you have medicine on hand. So many little examples where food storage really comes in handy.

Just putting a little thought out there.....