Money Chores

I originally had this as part of my other post, but I think it deserves a space of its own.

We had a special family meeting last Sunday about money. Brady had gotten after the kids for not doing their chores right and one of the children (I won't say who, but you can guess) said, "Maybe we would do it better if we got paid." WRONG answer. We tried an allowance once, and we regretted it. It started a whole entitlement issue, with the kids starting to say that we "owed" them money. Parents do NOT owe their children money and I was not going to have them speaking to their father that way when he is working so hard at 2 jobs!

So we got all the kids together and told them that if they wanted, we would start paying them for their chores. But if they wanted to get paid for their work, they would also have to pay for the goods and services they receive. I took a white board and had them list all of the goods & services they would have to pay for. Some of the things included food, clothing, electricity, laundry, television, etc. They realized real quick that what they receive from Mom and Dad far outweighs their chore contributions. We talked about how chores are something that we do because we belong to a family and everyone needs to help out. I pointed out how ridiculous it would be if I told their Dad that I wanted money for the chores I do around the house and how it's just as ridiculous for them to do it.

But we understand that they want a little spending money and it's good for them to learn some financial skills. I asked them, "What did Dad do when we needed more money?" They answered that he got a 2nd job. I asked them,"What did I do when we needed more money?" They answered that I started selling hats. So we told them that if they wanted extra money, they could also get a 2nd job. We are now instituting 2nd chores which we call "money chores." I will pick extra chores every week that they can get paid for if their regular chores and homework are caught up. We have got to free our kids from the epidemic of entitlement and the quest of "something for nothing" that is so prevalent in our society. I really feel that parents who give without requiring are saddling their children with a future handicap in both their professional and social lives. For a great discussion on this, read an essay entitled "The Cornucopia Kids: Giving Children Too Much May be Giving Too Little." It's by Bruce Baldwin and it's a 16 page article published by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. If you can find it, it's awesome! I'll get down from my soapbox now.

Catching Up

Earlier this week, after a day of botched peach jam, kids with diarrhea and a husband out of town, I plopped down on my bed with a pan of Rice Krispie Treats and the remote control to see what was happening in the world of Bravo Reality TV. Then I started thinking that I'm not keeping up with this blog like I want to. I really like it, but it can end up feeling like homework at the end of a day when I am completely exhausted. And I am completely exhausted almost every night. So I am lowering my expectations of becoming a great and powerful blogger. I am hoping that the lowered expectations will make me more relaxed about it, which in turn will actually induce me to produce more posts. I'm practicing psychology without a license here, but it's worth a shot.

So, here's a little bit of what's been happening in my life. The canning adventures have continued, yielding both grape juice and some yummy pear butter. Have you ever used a steam juicer? Those things are SO COOL! I don't have one, of course, but a huge thank you to Tracy and Heidi for letting me use theirs. It is now on my wish list. I have also been crocheting my little hats until my fingers go numb, but I am really happy about their success.

Little Lucy has been running around in a cheetah costume for weeks now. I have put my foot down about wearing it in a store, but I admit that she did walk in a church with it on. She wears it and sleeps in it until it is dirty or peed in, and then digs through the hampers when I do laundry looking for it. When she wants to wear it, she comes to me and says, very emphatically, "I hate my clothes! I HATE THEM! I want them off!" She has a hard time taking the costume off to go to the bathroom, so we've had lots of accidents, which is making me HATE the costume. Sigh. She turns 3 tomorrow and is super excited. Here is a picture of her in the costume.

Got Me Some Skills!

Well, I decided to be brave and attempt to do some canning. I have zero canning skills. I've never done it by myself, I only helped my Mom when I was a kid. And I use the term "helped" very loosely. On Wednesday, my friend Liz gave me a box of apples and I decided to do applesauce. So I borrowed my friend Tracy's Saucer and my friend Tyra's water bath canner and after scrounging up some jars from my basement, I was ready for the fun to begin. And, again, I use the term "fun" loosely. It was very satisfying, but after about 5 hours, it was no longer fun. Brady took the kids and slept outside in the camper, so it was a one man job. I had to scrub the kitchen in the middle of the night because applesauce hardens into industrial strength glue. (After 6 kids, I've had applesauce on almost every surface imaginable.) But I got everything cleaned up and I was so happy to get some new skills! Here are some pictures of the process:

Then, yesterday, I got another box of apples and decided I would do apple pie filling. Which sounds reasonable, except that I started the project 5 hours before we were supposed to leave for family pictures, thinking "I can do it! It won't take that long." HA! Famous last words. (Insert Brady's "I told you so!") So of course, I'm still slicing apples while hollering instructions to children about what clothes to wear and timing my shower while the last batch is cooking and we were all running late. I did not have time to clean anything, so I left the kitchen looking like this:

But in the end, we got some yummy apple pie filling and had a great time doing our family pictures. We always dread getting our pictures taken. It is just plain awful. Someone is always pouting, someone is always crying, Mommy is always frazzled and Daddy is always mad. But this year, we had our neighbor and friend, Tyra, take them at the university gardens and it was great! The kids liked being outdoors and picking where they wanted their shots. We had to hurry because it was overcast and we were losing light, but we were still able to get a lot of fun shots in. I'm really excited to see how they turn out, especially the individual shots of the kids. We also took some pictures up by the Rexburg temple. In a quiet moment, I looked at all of these people around me, all happy and dressed in matching brown and cream, and realized that they were all mine. And I loved them all and they loved me. I thought my heart was going to swell out of my chest with contentment. It was a fleeting personal moment, but I hang on to those. That's the stuff that moms cling to when we wonder "Why am I doing this again?" So a big thank you to Tyra and also to all my friends who let me borrow and mooch for my canning education. I finally got me some canning skills!