Thursday, September 27, 2007

The roller coaster

I was thinking last night about this house. The cleanliness of this house, specifically. Any of you who do not have at least three children probably can't imagine the sheer volume of filth in my house. The numbers of drinks spilled, crumbs dropped, and toys kicked under furniture add up to a continual, uncleanable mess.

There are times I feel like I have it relatively under control. The boys do their chores, I come along and finish up, and things look pretty good. And then there are times that almost all of the work is left for me to do, and I can't keep up. Then I get sick, like this past week, and absolutely nothing gets done, and then when I'm well, the sheer volume of disgustingness makes me want to crawl into a hole and never come out. I feel like I am constantly either at the pinnacle of making things just the way I want them (this usually happens right before company comes), or down in the dirty depths of grossness from which there would seem to be no escape.

It's not that I don't have the time to clean. But when I spend all day teaching, then cook dinner, I really really don't feel like spending two hours cleaning on top of that. And when I do, it gets messed up immediately, so where's my motivation? Why bother to clean at all? Can you tell I'm at a low point right now?

My oldest son always does his chores. The younger ones don't. I've tried taking away every privilege they have and they Just Don't Care. I've tried taking their chore money so that the oldest gets to buy neat toys when they have no money to buy anything, and they just don't care. Oh sure, they whine at the toy store, but that doesn't motivate them to work at home. I don't get it. Does anyone have any ideas to motivate two kids who won't work? Because I'm going to lose my mind here.

3 comments:

  1. yup - I hear you. I have 2 big black dogs on top of the kids, so not only do I have kid messes - but dog hair, dog dirt, and dog stink everywhere.

    Sometimes, I'll clean one room and ban everyone from it for that day - just so I can go sit bymyself in cleanliness.

    (tomorrow, Friday, I am posting a challenge - it will be right up this alley!)

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  2. I'm sorry I don't have any suggestions. You've got more kids than me and you home school - so I can't imagine. I've got more than 5 hours all by myself to clean so I don't have any excuses. Even if I had 10 kids, I'd have to find a way to keep it clean since Carlos is a neat freak. If anything is out of place he gets aggitated and I can't put up with that. LOL.

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  3. Teenage daughter does her chores when she wants something. Man child has his moments. It can be so frustrating.

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