House of Zathras

Yes, there have been changes at the non-virtual HoZ. Changes in habits.

For example, last Friday I sat everyone down for a family meeting. I laid down a few rules about house cleaning. On Mondays, everyone would clean their bedrooms. On Tuesdays, dust and vacuum those rooms. Wednesdays would be for cleaning another assigned room, and Thursdays are for dusting and vacuuming those rooms. Fridays are for cleaning bathrooms. (Chores are already in place daily for cleaning the kitchen.) When you get home from work/school you may have a snack, but no tv or computer time until the cleaning is finished. If we can be regular at this, it would leave the weekends freer and less stressful.

Well, Buck was pouty. I pointed out that he had that whole weekend to adjust, and then the new plan would start on Monday. Yes, he had an extremely messy room, but he could at least get started on laundry and not have so much to face on Monday.

He did nothing. Monday came (bedroom-cleaning day). Since Buck leaves for school after us and gets home before us, I took the precaution of disconnecting the internet and locking the remote to the satellite service in my room. (He could change channels manually, of course, but he won’t stoop to that!) I came home, and he lay sleeping on his bed. I woke him up and reminded him of his responsibilities (nearly breaking my neck crossing the crap in his room to get to his bed!), but didn’t say anything further. No computer/tv for Buck that night.

Tuesday came (bedroom dusting and vacuuming day). When I got home, Buck had still done nothing, and was once again laying on his bed. Princess No and I got busy and finished with our chores. Then I left to have dinner with BR (thank you for the wonderful steaks, darling!), and Princess No got on the computer. As I left, Buck asked when I would be home. I told him I wasn’t sure, but I would be home by 10:00 (on school nights he does have to get off tv/computer by 9:00 anyway). I barely got to BR’s before Buck was calling, begging, pleading to please, please let him get on the computer (Facebook and withering crops in Farmville were calling him apparently) and he would promise to get all his work done.

I simply said, “No”, each time he asked. He finally gave up.

Wednesday came (cleaning the ‘extra’ assigned room; in Buck’s case, the living room where he’s pretty much the only one to watch tv). Princess No and I got home a little later than usual. But when we got home, Buck had cleaned, dusted, and vacuumed the living room, doing Thursday’s work one day early.

Can I have a “Hallelujah!!!”?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 8:46 pm and is filed under Angst (mine, kids', whoever wants it, come and get it), Family Fear Factor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.