It’s funny how things repeat themselves. This is my second attempt at a Macaroni Publisher site, and I couldn’t be happier, but much like with my first go-round, plans quickly went belly-up! You see, just as I launched my new site, I also launched my body over the dog and was facing 10 weeks in a sling while I healed from broken bones and torn tendons. Suddenly typing was an impossible task. But somehow I got through it and took advantage of the opportunity to have this site. And, once again, those plans went belly-up as we discovered my shoulder and arm would need surgery to heal. To quote Yogi Berra “It’s Deja vu all over again”. And it was, but I also had the advantage of learning from my recent past.
So, with all this negative, it’s been a bit hard to see the positive, but there has been some! I’m grateful for the help I’ve received. Family and friends have driven me to appointments, entertained my kids while I rested, and helped me navigate life these past few weeks. Dinners have been dropped off, or gift cards given, and I’ve heard an awful lot of “Yes” to my many requests for help. My husband has been the primary parent, taking a leave from his job to do so. The more difficult part has been accepting that I need so much help! I’m a helper of others by nature and personality, so this was once again uncharted territory.
My kids, in the past 6 months, have taken on more chores. After a few fits and starts, we’ve found a rhythm that works for us and the kids are fairly consistent with completing. I found chore task checklists are helpful for some of my kids, others of my kids are more content to find their own way to complete a chore and I had to be content to sit back and let them figure it out on their own.
Now this makes it sound all rosy, but I assure you there were hard times. Outright resistance some days, accidentally broken dishes, one memorable incident with eggs cooked in a stainless steel skillet that burned and became one with the pan, requiring many, many thorough scrubbings, and one child even reheated a single garlic knot in the microwave, setting the timer for minutes, not seconds. I think we all remember the smell of charred garlic knot.
Kids and chores are imperfect, so my husband and I also had to change. Patience needed to be key. Patience when a task took a kid far longer than it took us. Patience when so much soap was applied to clean the sink that bubbles started escaping. Patience when a chore went wrong, period. In the end, It was loud, it was imperfect, and it was worth the struggle. While I didn’t love it, the mistakes had to happen for learning.
Some of the resources we used were the numerous chore suggestions by developmental milestones, as well as knowing which kid liked water and which kid hates the sound the vacuum makes. Then I got my hands a bit dirty on Canva and made custom checklists, because rather than needing a chore chart to say “I did it” with a sticker, my kids needed literal guidance on what it meant to complete a particular chore. The issue wasn’t with my kids doing the chore, but rather in doing it completely. We could tell if a chore wasn’t done by looking! And surprisingly we also decided to institute an allowance. Each of my kids has defined chores for the day and completing all of the chores earns all of the allowance.
So some weeks and a few days into our new normal we’re finding a path, slightly bumpy, but a forward path for sure.
