Beyond the Fun

I've been trying so hard, as every mother does, to keep up with the house. I started telling the kids a few minutes before Dan gets home to "Hurry lets get the living room clean for Daddy when he gets home!". This was working great until today. Today I said the usual and my son said "Why?" So I told him. "We want Daddy to be in a good mood when he gets here cause he's worked all day. When the house is clean it feels calmer and more relaxing." His reply, "Cleaning a house takes so much work its not relaxing! Dirty houses are much easier to do." Oh! Out of the mouths of babes!

It's so hard to get a child to enjoy having a clean house. Especially if they have to pitch in to keep it that way. Grace is at an age where we can sing the clean up song and she's excited to help for a few minutes, at least. But Orion has heard that song for many years now. I try to encourage him with the prospect that one day he'll get to be the "foreman" and just help the younger ones with these kinds of tasks but I don't know how long that will work. He's getting so smart so quick and what once I could explain without getting into the logic of the matter has quickly shifted into having to explain myself.

With the growing up comes more responsibilities of course. As I mentioned in the previous post my big boy is now responsible for dinner dishes. I have done a time or two with the kids a fun dinner night when Dan is working late. They get to eat and drink out of any dish they want - soup pot, deviled egg tray, something from the china cabinet, a shoe, ANY thing they want to pick. We had so much fun and Orion even told me once that he had always wanted to drink out of this jug he was drinking his tea from. Well....the other day I said, "Ok ya'll you get to pick a dish tonight!" "I know what I'm getting!" screeched Orion, "a paper plate." Huh?..... "Are you sure? You get to pick ANYTHING you want?! Why a paper plate?" "Because I've got to wash all those dishes!" I hate the logic in that statement! He skips out on fun just so he can skip out on the extra work.

It's sad yet satisfying all at once. Satisfying because that was a really quick response and the thought process that went into that in those few seconds was pretty nice for a little kid! And it was awesome to see he was thinking about the consequences of his actions WAY ahead of time.  But..Its sad seeing that he's beyond the point that fun dominates his thinking & reasoning. That only lasts for a short while and it is hard to see it go. I'm looking forward to the future with gladness and I am excited to see what this new stage of child rearing holds for us!