Excuses, Excuses

Today is Friday, that means that tomorrow is Saturday. Saturday, a day we all get to sleep in, that is if we have most of our chores done. For the last few weeks it has seemed that I have done most of the chores and that my children have taken the credit for it.

We have a system in our house where we have a weekly chore chart that we do together. On this chart it shows the days Monday through Saturday and a huge bunch of things that we can do in order to keep the house running smoothly. A few of the chores that we have on our chart are: clean off the kitchen counter, mop the kitchen, scrub the bathtub, feed the dogs, vacuum the dining room, unload the dishwasher, sweep Dad's shop... Each person is to get 30 chore points a week. The chores range from one point- like taking the garbage out, to 3 points like cleaning out old food from the fridge. We can spread out the chores however we want as long as we have 30 points by Saturday around 11am. If one does not have at least 20 chore points by Friday night they get to wake up early on Saturday morning (7:00am or earlier if they have less than 20) so that they have time to get them done. This system works pretty well because it makes allowances for busy schedules. I usually get most of my 30 chore points on Monday when I have the day off. Most of the time I have more than 30 chore points because someone has to cook dinner during the week.

Last Saturday Joe and Sarah Rose both told me that they did all of their chores. The excuse they used last week was that they just forgot to write them all down. Some how the house didn't get that clean either, probably a coincidence. This was when I decided that I would help everyone out and write down their chores for them.

This week, I kept a careful record. As it stands right now at 8:00 pm Friday night, I have 39 points, Sarah Rose has 12, Sarah D has 24, and Joe has 13. Joe tried the "I forgot to write down all of the chores that I did" excuse already. When he realized that I was the one keeping track of them he changed his excuse. So, tonight I have heard that it is my fault because I have done all of the chores and there is nothing left to do. It's amazing that our house is so clean and there are still spaces on the chore chart that haven't been marked off yet.

The easy chores go first. All I can say about that is, if you want to sweep the stairs you better do it early so that you won't have to pick up the dog poop in the backyard later.