When you first move away from home, I think there is this little “NO MORE CHORES… YESSS” attitude! Now that I am older and have a family of my own it’s more like “Pick up your crap!” attitude. I can’t deal with little things like peanut butter on the counter… you could have reached like 5 feet and set it in its place. The kitchen has GOT to be clean at all times… as well as the living room, most times. I would rather be the only one cleaning as long as I know it will get done right.
We had a list of things to do during the summer… let me just give you a good example:
“*Monday – White clothes washed, dried and put away. Both rooms cleaned: This means picking and PUTTING AWAY everything, make beds and vacuum.
Ash – Bathroom and Kitchen. Bathroom: clean counter top, toilet, under toilet, behind toilet, behind sink, bathtub, sweep and mop. Kitchen: Unload dishwasher, load it, clean countertops, sweep, and mop.
Amber – Living room and Hallway. Living room: ALL trash, dust, clean glass tops (MOVE the rose bowls and angels to do so!), vacuum. Hallway: Vacuum. ((As you can see, these were the good days to have!))
*Tuesday – Towels washed, dried and put away. Rooms.
Ash – Living room and Hallway.
Ber – Bathroom and Kitchen.
*Wednesday – colored clothes washed, dried and put away. Rooms.
(Again, chores reversed)
*Thursday – Light colored clothes washed, dried and put away. Rooms.
(Chores reversed again)
*Friday – Rooms.
(Chores reversed again)”
The weekends pretty much just consisted of cleaning here and there and if laundry is needing to be done, it gets done.
Thinking about it now, I just have to laugh. My mom was smart about this… you see, she listed EVERYTHING she wanted done to her standards because she was sick of coming home and saying “why is that coke can there?” or “look behind the sink there”. This way we couldn’t give that blank “huh?” stare when she asked… It was right there in black and white, and some bold and underlined. She wasn’t a hard ass of a mom in a lot of ways… but she had her little things she wanted done certain ways.
The city pool by our house opened at 1pm. What this meant for me was I had to wake up early and get my crap done so I can go swimming all day! You know as well as I do that just laundry is a time consuming thing. Load in, clean, load out/in, clean, load out/put away clothes and GET READY FOR THE POOL! There was another small issue… since the older sister felt she had to sleep till noon-30, she thought I always did less than my half in the laundry department. Soon after, my mom threatened that if we ever called her at work for that again, and were not bleeding, we were going to be in BIG trouble. Oh the days.
Looking back, I am amused but so thankful she did this. I know I learned a lot just from chores. Hell, some people don’t even know how to work a washer or dryer… now that is a shame. When Kasen is old enough to stay home after school and during summer, in sports or not, he WILL have a nifty little list of his own to complete. I still had a BLAST during the summer time… I just managed to help out a little around the house is all!
Man, were those summers fun though!
