Chore time and the Pumpkin Patch

Our family has been participating in a great experiment lately. I had grown tired of being the only one who did any routine housework, and being frustrated had just stopped trying. You can imagine what that did to our home. What a mess! But help was on the way. I'd recently discovered reruns of "Super Nanny" and another favorite show "Clean House" and I got some inspiration. I talked to Thomas about it to be sure he'd be onboard for my new plan and he agreed to give it a whirl.

So about a month ago we had a family home evening lesson about housekeeping. I presented my idea to Afton and Thomas and we worked together to make a list of housekeeping chores that everyone could manage. We came up with 14 chores and added a 15th - Free day. But I knew to get everyone's cooperation we needed to add an exciting incentive. So we decided together that if everyone did their chores during the week that we'd have a fun family outing on Saturdays.

Week one was pretty rough as the house was pretty dirty, but we all survivied and had our first reward outing - we went bowling for two hours. It was a blast and just made everyone resolve to do great for our next outing. The following weekend we drove to Downtown Disney and watched the Toy Story movies in 3-D (actually I think Afton watched them and her parents both took naps...) The third weekend Thomas and I went out of town and left Afton in the capable care of our friend Kelly. We left enough money for her to take Afton out for dinner as a reward, and then they hit the local Claire's boutique for some new earrings for Afton.

This past week (yup! that's four weeks of success!) we all went to the local pumpkin patch to check out the pumpkins and have some family time. (Bet you were wondering if I'd ever get here, eh?) Afton brought her own money to pay for the rides and we promised to buy her one pumpkin. We looked on as she tried the bungee jumping, fed the sheep at the petting zoo, slid down the slide, and rode the kiddie rides. She had a blast and we all had fun.

I am so pleased that this new routine is working out so well. I love coming home to discover that my house is much cleaner and tidier (still working on the tidy part) and my family is all still involved. I have had to realize that it might not be as clean as if I'd done it, but hey -- I'll eventually draw that chore and do it "my way." Of course the "Free Day" is the most coveted chore, and so far I haven't been lucky enough to draw it. But I think I really knew it was successful when I was out cleaning the patio while Afton was windexing the patio doors. She looked over at me and said, "This is fun, Mom." I asked her what was fun. She replied, "Cleaning with you. It's lots of fun to clean together." Success!

Thomas has been so great about participating, too. The best part was when he drew the "wipe out the fridge" chore on Monday of week two. He had just done it the previous Thursday and wasn't sure it needed it again. I explained that that's the beauty of the new "system." You just clean it when you get it and it will never be that bad again.

The only hitch we've run into so far is when Afton has lots of after-school activities, so we've had to allow her to defer one or two times until the next day. But everyone has to have all of their chores done by Friday for the reward activity to kick in. And you can always do two chores on one day (or three or four or five!) just as long as you do at least one per day. Yay for my nice clean house. Now, what shall we do for our family outing this weekend...