Saturday, March 7, 2009

Housework

Dear Peeps

As you are growing up so fast, its time to start to instigate set jobs and responsibilities in our daily life. You’ve both been great at helping me out when I ask, but I feel its time to make you more responsible for the house keeping and running of our home. Morgan, you helped me out with the washing today and you were so pedantic with the pegs! thanks

I know that this will only help you in the future, as I know of kids who don’t lift a finger in the home, running their poor mum ragged. I have always ensured you tidy up your own toys – with the rule of one toy or game out at a time. You guys have always been awesome with tidying up your things, especially when we are visiting other people – thank you.

I never thought my childhood was any different to others until I was an adult and spoke to friends about their upbringing. I remember cooking things – mostly biscuits, cakes and desserts from a very young age – probably around 7 to 8 years old. I would have been 10 or 11 when I started cooking dinner at least twice a week for the family. I had the great assistance of my two younger sisters – who are wonderful cooks in their own right. We used to enter our cooking ( cakes, biscuits, sweets and slices) into the local shows – and whip everyones arse! Anyway – the point being that with 6 kids, out of necessity to ensure everyone was fed and house kept at some sort of organization, Mum assigned us jobs in the morning and night and there just wasn’t a discussion that it wouldn’t be done. We had dogs to feed, cows and goats to milk, later on horses to be fed and watered, washing to hang, our own lunches and dinner to make and seasonal tasks surrounding farm work, shearing, mustering, picking fruit or vegetables. I left home at 16 and had flat mates who couldn’t even boil a potato – and lets not talk about their ability to clean or keep house. I want a good mix of fun and games and family responsibilities to populate our daily lives; thus the job list…

Morgan is already able to make me a cup of tea and delights in bringing me a cut up apple or pieces of fruit in bed. Both kids can crack eggs and love to help mix and prepare salads. As Adrian has been sticking to a gluten free diet for some time, I stopped making biscuits and cakes – so the kids kind of miss out on baking with me. Also as we are following a raw foods plan, I no longer cook, so the options in preparing tradition meals at the moment is also lost to them. However, we talk about nutrition and food values on the things we eat and experiment with tastes – so its kept fun and informative.

This week you have kept the dishwasher unpacked, your rooms tidy and the clothes in the laundry. We cleaned and scrubbed the bathrooms and toilets – so they now I hope you have some sort of emotional buy in to ensure they are kept clean. Its worked now for a week and we have a target of a whole month. Lillys reward is going to be her room being redecorated in purples and pinks, lots of fairy dust, frills and whatever else she wants. Morgan is going to get me to paint a mural of jungle animals and vines on his feature wall.

Thanks peeps – for doing your bit to keep things orderly, clean and tidy to live in. You guys ROCK!

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