working our chores like christmas elves.

I used to roll my eyes at the proverb, "Many hands make light work."  I was all, "Yeah, sure; but not before those many hands make many, many messes."  And it was true: for a long time, I was the lone and sole proprietor of the little business endeavor called Keeping Everyone Clean and Also Alive All Day.  Now, don't get me wrong; I'm a huge proponent of starting kids off with household responsibilities from a young age.  So I'd raised up little apprentices, sure, but no one who could manage the business while I went to lunch.

But I can thankfully say I think I'm officially out of that tunnel at last.  My apprentices are slowly but surely becoming managers in their own right, and stuff actually gets done.  And not just a token 'done', either; like, real-live, actual done.

Our house has devolved into chaos over the last few months year and a half since moving here.  With homeschooling, lots of little kids, ministry, pregnancy, and newborn days, the house has just kind of stayed a level of clean that ranks just above 'grimy'.  I'm actually okay with it, for the most part, since there's not really a whole lot more that I have the energy for.  As long as things stay 'clean enough,' I'm cool with it.

But lately, stuff has just irked me.  I think I'm at that stage post-newborn where I'm just ready for things to get back to a sense of normal, and for a predictable level of calm, controlled chaos.  So yesterday morning, after a quick trip to the chiropractor and the eye doctor's office to pick up Penelope's new glasses, I declared a cleaning day.

We sat down around the table for Cookies For Lunch.  (The eye doctor gives out the best, hugest, chocolate-chippiest homemade cookies in the whole world, so lunch was made for me.  I'm okay with my choices.)  I asked them to brainstorm all the jobs we could do in each room, with the promise of earning extra money with which to buy Christmas presents for their siblings.  The list they came up with was surprisingly long and thorough, and while they finished up their cookies, I divvied out the jobs amongst the kids.

I gave them each their own list, and as they completed jobs, they were allowed to 'check off' the items on their list by putting cool stickers on their list.  Non-readers were helped by me or their older buddy.  And we got so much done!  And on top of it, it was kind of fun all working side-by-side!  I never thought I'd see the day.

Here are just a few things we were able to tackle on our main floor in a little over an hour:

Mopped the entire first floor
Vacuumed all rugs and the 'edges' of each room
Wiped cabinet fronts
Cleaned windows
Cleaned baseboards
Wet-dusted (big kids)
Dry-dusted (little kids)
Watered plants
Changed sheets
Sorted toy bins
Sorted the Lego table
Mopped kitchen and wiped cabinets a second time after a glass of milk broke all over the tile floor and splattered everywhere.  Whoops.

Tomorrow, we'll be continuing on our quest to get a handle on the state of things.  We'll be working together to:

Fold and put away laundry
Clean the showers
Vacuum and dust the basement
Wash the ring of dirt off the walls


I am so ready to have a fresh baseline from which to allow everything to fall to crap again!  And, in a year and a half when we do this again, all the kids will be even older, so I'll have even more hands on deck to help out with stuff.  Having a bunch of kids sure feels lucrative sometimes.

For more on how we equip the kids for household responsibilities, and how we teach them to manage an allowance, check out the following:

My FB Live video on kids' chores, allowance, and money management.

On chore charts and the buddy system.
An early prototype of our current clipboard system.

A chore clipboard for a pre-reader.

Some of the responsibilities we started with early on.

Jobs I assign to kids aged 3-5.

Jobs I assign to kids aged 6-8 .