Little Minions

Stretched on the sofa eating bon-bons and reading my favorite book while the little minions er... elves jump to my bidding er request... Ha!

Thanks to establishing The Cleaning Elves lifestyle over 2 years ago, things are a bit easier to handle. Kids still struggle to put things back in their allotted spots on a daily basis, they still need plenty of reminders to organize their things, they still need a healthy dose of carrot-and-stick routine for some basic tasks...

But the one thing I am grateful for (for as long as it lasts, fingers crossed), is the unloading of the dishwasher, my least favorite job. When they come back from school, the younger one unloads and puts away the non-breakables which is conveniently in the lower cupboards that he can reach. The older child puts away the breakables in the upper cupboards. They know exactly where everything goes and they unload quite enthusiastically.

No, it's not any magic spell that I cast. Just that, after the dishwasher is unloaded they earn 30 minutes of laptop or iPad time. Seems antithetic that a reward would be "screen time" but since the younger one looks up things like plioplatecarpus during his iPad turn, and the older one plays Animal Jam with her old friends on her laptop, it doesn't seem like such a bad deal for me.

Particularly since, School Days are Not Watch Days.

If only I can get them to not generate so much dirty laundry and have them make their own dinners, I'll be all set for that stretch-on-sofa-eat-bon-bon routine...