How to Decrapify a Kid's Bedroom in Four Short Days

Do you ever get what you think is going to be a great idea and then it turns out to be an epic flop? It happens to me a lot. So much that I've become pretty familiar with failure. We're pretty tight.

Well, a couple weeks ago I got one of those great ideas and I came up with a chore list for my girls to completely clean out their rooms, decrapify and spring clean, all without my supervision and nagging.

We are all kinds of crazy in this house.

I decided I was going to break it down, with very specific, anal instructions that went day by day over the course of a week.

I typed up a list and taped one to each of the girls' bedroom doors. Then I snapped a picture and posted it on Instagram and Facebook. I was so proud of myself. Then the doubt set in. What if my kids laughed at me and refused to comply?

I'm sure my kids are very typical in that they groan and complain whenever I ask them to do chores. Zoe especially. She acts like I'm asking her to give up a kidney when I ask her to do something as simple as water the garden.

Well, much to my surprise my girls complied without any prompting from me. In fact, it probably helped that I was out of the house all week at teacher education classes, and I wasn't able to check in on them. They stepped up and did everything on the list each day, and most days they even got a head start on the next day's list, just so they could get it done.

Here's how it went down.

Day #1 - Bed/Books

1. Take all bedding off bed and dust with a rag.

2. Wash all bedding and make bed.

3. Clean underneath bed: remove EVERYTHING and sweep or vacuum and mop.

4. Organize under bed (plastic containers with lids are in the guest room).

5. Go through books upstairs and downstairs and make a pile to donate. I expect to see your donate pile, so do not dump it in the guest room.

I don't know about you, but in this house the guest room is the dumping grounds, so whenever anyone has something they don't want anymore and they are too lazy to do something about it (myself included) we just dump it in the guest room to worry about another day. That day is usually the day before a guest arrives for a visit, at which point the pile may or may not be dealt with, and is sometimes hidden underneath the tables in my crafting area. 

Denial is my BFF.

Day #2 - Closet-A-Palooza

1. Remove everything from the closet and vacuum or sweep and mop in closet

2. Wash shelves and walls in closet with a rag and 409

3. Make a pile of shoes and clothes that no longer fit for donating.

4. Throw away trash and set aside anything you wish to donate. I expect to see your donate pile, so do not dump it in the guest room.

5. Return things to your closet that you are keeping. Dust them off as you go, and put them away neatly.

As you can see, I'm very sensitive and mistrusting about the dumping of the crap in the guest room.

This is Zoe's closet after decrapification. I realize that it may not look like much, but I feel I should reiterate that this is Zoe's closet. She's my hoarding baby and she will keep gum wrappers because the trash can is so far away.

I am very, very proud of the work she did especially because organizing and cleaning has never been her thing.

It is such an incredibly painful process to clean out her room because we have very different standards and she thinks that I'm an OCD freak and completely unrealistic about the way her room should look.

Maybe, but I'm the boss and she has to listen to me because I'm bigger. And meaner. And her mom, dang it.

I know we clean her room at least once a year, but I don't have an explanation for this shirt that clearly has not fit her for years.

Day #3 - Dresser

1. Put everything in your hamper in the washing machine and start a load.

2. Take everything out of your dresser and place it on your neatly made bed.

3. Vacuum out dresser drawers and dust outside of dresser with furniture polish.

4. Carefully fold clothes and return those that still fit and you intend to wear to your dresser. Follow the Kon Marie Method of folding (look it up if you weren't paying attention).

5. Carefully fold clothes to donate and make a separate pile. Leave it on your bed.

6. Move clothes in the washer to the dryer and make sure all of your laundry is folded and put away.

So I've been reading that book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, and I was sort of joking about #4. Although the book has some great advice, like most self help books do, I feel like the author could have said what she needed to say with a whole lot fewer words.

And the whole idea of thanking the stuff that I'm purging for its service and the joy it has brought me just makes me roll my eyes. Ain't nobody got time for that.

If I'm going to be talking to my clothes as I kick them to the curb it's going to be a whole lot more satisfying than that mess. I might say "I never liked the way you made my butt look you sorry excuse for a pair of jeans!"

I could maybe get behind that, but still, unnecessary waste of time in my world.

Day #4 - Everything Else

1. Move all furniture and clean behind and underneath.

2. Clean all furniture with furniture polish.

3. Wipe down lower walls, baseboards, and chair rails with a rag and soapy water (use a bucket of warm water with a drop of dish soap in it). Use 409 on hard to clean spots.

4. Wipe down window casing and clean inside of window.

5. Declutter!!!! By this, I mean make a pile of things to donate and throw away things that are junk. I want to see your donate pile, so don't just dump it in the guest room.

6. Organize your stuff. Everything should have a place and everything should be in its place. Surfaces should be clear. Nothing should be on the floor if it is not a piece of furniture.

7. Ask your sister to look over your room and give you constructive, polite criticism.

Notice the guest room/crap disclaimer is there again. I'm very, very twitchy about it.

I will tell you right now that #7 is a potential mine field. I knew this when I typed it but I did it anyway because I wanted to see if they could handle it. That, and I like cheap entertainment.

However, to my surprise, again, they handled themselves beautifully and even worked together at times.

This is Zoe's room at the end of decrapification. Zoe's room never looks like this. Never. This was a big deal for her to do with zero help from me. And Hallelujah, because I loathe participating in this particular aspect of parenting my children.

And this is Stinkerbell's room. To be honest, this whole purge, clean, organize thing was just a typical day in the life of Stinkerbell. She has always been obviously my child as far as cleaning, organizing, and all things domestic go.

Except for that brief period of time in her preschool years when she curated some very disturbing collections of fingernail clippings and crumbs from each day's preschool snack hidden in her closet.

Now, I'm sure many of you are wondering how I encouraged my kids to do this without some sort of threat or motivation, so I'm going to fess up right now and tell you that I used both.

In fact, at the bottom of their lists was the following statement.

There will be a military-like inspection every day at 5:00 p.m. I expect you to be in your room and ready for inspection. If I am happy with the result, you will receive a REWARD. If I am not happy, you will receive a CONSEQUENCE. Do not disappoint me. J

I didn't think this part through very well and most days I couldn't tell you what that day's reward was going to be. The girls would ask me and I would fake them out and tell them "It's a surprise. You'll have to wait and see."

I didn't have to come up with any consequences because they met the deadline to my satisfaction every day. And thank goodness, because I could see myself raising my arms over my head threateningly and yelling "RAWR!" at them or something ridiculous like that. In reality I'm sure I could deliver, if pressed.

I don't think they should know ahead of time what the reward or consequence will be because they might decide the reward wasn't worth it or the consequence was not a big deal. Anticipation is king.

The first day the reward was the biggest because I wanted them to get excited. I took them to the book store and let each of them pick out a new book. 

The second day we took them out for ice cream after dinner.

The third day I gave each of them $5.

The fourth day I told them that I was going to take them to the museum for the Pirates exhibit they've been wanting to see. And nobody has to know that I was going to take them anyway.

I can honestly say it was worth every penny, and I will be making this a yearly project every summer.

It was such a success in my world, that we have moved onto other areas of the house. In this picture they are cleaning out our coat closet. The possibilities are endless!

Pinspired Again

Blast Pinterest! I tell you, my life was a lot simpler before it came into my life. I'm obsessed with checking in to see what's new, and once I click in, I can't leave until I get to the bottom of the pin page. 

In spite of my addiction, I have managed to try a couple of my pins.

Here's the first one.

Crackle Bookshelves by crazy shelves.blogspot.com

I came across this amazing bookshelf on Pinterest and it led me down the rabbit hole. I'm not lying. This was a pin that led to nowhere, and because I had to have it, I spent long minutes of my life trying to resuscitate it proper onto my Pinboard. Thanks to Google, finally I met with success.

But alas, I was not able to recreate this magic you see before you.

My skillz fell short.

I started with this unsuspecting little magnet board, which I love, but it has outgrown its intended use.

When I went back to work four years ago, I created this magnet board to keep the girls' schedules straight when I knew I would be forever and perpetually discombobulated. 

The magnet board worked like a charm too. I'm really sad to see it go, but since we're no longer using it, I decided to redo it, with the pinspiration above, and use it in my classroom.

Not exactly what I was going for. Here's what I think I did wrong. First of all, I was supposed to use latex paint for my colors, and I used acrylic paint. I was lazy and I didn't want to go out and buy six different colors of latex paint because, you know, money.

Since my paint wasn't latex, you can see the ridges where the colors meet up and it's not at all like it's supposed to look like. 

Which is this. Swoon.

What a letdown.

So I declare my attempt at recreating this pin a flop. A Pinflop.

Not to be foiled, I decided to approach the project another way. Since I knew I wasn't going to invest in vast amounts of gorgeous paint, I decided to sand down just the top surface of the frame to get rid of the ridges. 

Next I applied a very thick coat of Valspar's Weathered Crackle Glaze for round two.

After an hour, I applied a nice thick coat of a red latex paint. The trick with the Crackle Glaze is that you need a thick coat of paint over the top of it, but it cannot be overworked. If you try to brush it on the same spot more than once, it rolls off and makes a mess. Through trial and error, I learned to load up my brush and sort of roll the paint on thick in one stroke.

I really like how it turned out, even though it didn't live up to my initial Pinspiration vision.

I'm especially glad that I left the edges the way they were, so I have some of the bright colors coming through.

Those areas were small enough that you can't really see the flaws from my first go at it.

I guess the other thing I didn't mention was that I also turned the magnetic board into a chalkboard as well. It was my first time using chalkboard paint, and it was pretty easy to use. I'll definitely use it again.

I first tried the Crackle Glaze on this bookcase that I posted about last week. I learned a lot about how to use the Crackle Glaze on this project, so it's not the best example of the cool effect that's possible with the glaze.

I practiced some more with this little table that my computer tower and printer at school sit on.

I feel so special now with matchy matchy furniture in my classroom.

I even improved on my crackle skillz.

I also get Pinspiration in parenting techniques. There are quite a few examples of different kids wearing this shirt on Pinterest.

Imagine my unbridled glee when my girls began arguing like Cockfighting Parrots earlier this week. Here, finally, is my opportunity to whip out the Getting Along Shirt.

Many tears were shed (by Zoe Bug), many pictures were taken (by me), and many buttons were pushed (by Stinkerbell).

Zoe, with a tear stained and red face blowing snot, yelled "She won't cooperate! She's just flopping around like an extra appendage and she won't let me get my chores done!"

"Well, Sweetie, she kind of is an extra appendage. If you want to get out of the shirt, you have to work together and be pleasant with one another."

The tragic part is that Stinkerbell enjoyed every minute of it. She had Zoe captive for a button pushing extravaganza.

I think there will be therapy. Karma will get me in the Nursing Home one day, I know it. 

The Extreme Sport of Lying to My Offspring

Today was the day that the ugly truth came out.

I am the Easter Bunny.

I've been finding plastic eggs all day that the girls missed, and Zoe Bug slipped and asked me where I hid all of them. I said "You mean 'where did the Easter Bunny hide all of them?'"

Then she looked me in the eye and said "Mom, tell the truth. You're the Easter Bunny, aren't you?"

"Why do you say that, Sweetie?" was my reply.

"Because Mom. Last night I came out to check the Easter baskets and they weren't there, and you and Dad were still up." she accusingly replied.

Oopsie.

Really, I'm surprised this conversation hasn't happened sooner. You see, I suck at my job. I Green-Gopher-Guts-Suck at keeping the magic alive.

I started slipping about four years ago when I blew it with the Tooth Fairy. Of course I still maintain that there is a Tooth Fairy, but I never miss an opportunity to tell my kids what a slacker she is. On average it takes her about four nights to get to our house to retrieve a tooth. It's pathetic.

The Easter Bunny is also a more-than-one time loser. It's just that it's so hard to get up at the crack of dawn to hide eggs. I just can't seem to motivate myself.

And of course we cannot forget about Peter-Peter-Pumpkin-Eater, the Magic Christmas Elf. I suck at that too.

Thankfully Peanut Head knows how to keep the magic alive with Santa. We haven't confessed to that one yet, but I think that this house of cards is coming down too.

I'm actually kind of relieved that the whole Easter Bunny secret is out in the open. It was exhausting keeping up with the charade. I feel as if a great weight has been lifted from my chest.

What?! Is this what truth feels like? Ah. . . . my soul is at peace now.

The conversation that I've really been dreading has come and gone like a blip on a seismometer located on the San Andreas Fault. Yep. We had The Talk. The Birds and the Bees. Your Body is Changing and You Will Soon Be Horrified at the Things that Will Appear and Grow.

It's funny because I always thought that when I had kids I would be very open with them about the human body and how it functions. Ha. Ha. Ha. It turns out that I didn't really want my kids to know about it because I didn't want them to be horrified and grossed out like I was.

It just goes to show you how much I really needed that Instruction Manual that inconveniently did not come home with my babies when I brought them home from the hospital. Someone needs to fix that.

So, I had no immediate plans to bring the topic of the birds and the bees up. At least not before the scheduled Fifth Grade Maturation Film that is offered in our district.

And it turns out that I didn't have to. It all came about by accident one day when we were driving in the car. Zoe asked me about the Alternative High School and the "Bad Kids" that went there. I explained to her that the kids that went there weren't "bad," but they had maybe made some bad choices or didn't have all the opportunities available to them that she has had available to her.

The conversation then turned to how some kids have babies before they are ready for them and then that makes it even harder to graduate from high school, yada yada. Zoe stopped me right there.

"How do they have babies, Mama?" she inquired.

I spewed out my usual tripe about putting the love together to make a baby, but for some reason this time she was not satisfied.

"No. How exactly do you put the love together to make a baby? How did you and Daddy make me?" she interrogated.

Gah! Where is the eject button in this ding dang car? I need out NOW!

After my momentary mental freak out, I took a deep breathe and replied, "Weeeeeell. I can tell you, but I have to warn you that you might be really grossed out by it."

I know, I know. I was leading the witness and all that, but I was preparing myself for the awkward moment.

"Do you really want to know?" I questioned before I took the plunge.

They did want to know. So I mentally cringed and explained the process quickly and concisely, without any distractors. I'm not going to relive it here because it hurts.

And I'm blushing.

And this is a family blog.

When I was finished I braced myself for the awkward moment.

The awkward moment came, but it was immediately diffused by Zoe. "Really?! That's how horses make babies! Did you have to go to the hospital to do it?"

Geesh. If I knew it was going to be that easy I wouldn't have waited so long. I kind of feel like the horses stole my thunder.

Lunch Box ID Tags Take Two

This is another one of those projects that has been on my To Do list forever. Since it's been two weeks since I last posted, I figured I'd better light a fire under my butt and get something done. So I picked this because it was relatively easy and didn't require too many decisions.

Sometimes decisions paralyze me.

I can't tell you how many projects I have going that just have the undesirable task of making an unimportant decision in order to wrap it up. Like, "I can't hang those pictures because I want to get a new couch someday and I don't know how big it will be, or where I will position it, or if it will match," blah, blah, blah.

Really, who cares? It's ridiculous the head games I play with myself.

Yes, I do have some pictures in my dumpster of a guest room, waiting to be hung up. Don't harass me.

Sometimes it's not the decisions, but instead the act of finishing a project. I don't know the psychology behind it, and really I probably don't care, but starting projects is great fun. Finishing projects is a drag. Especially if it's something that you haven't had time to touch for over a year and so you have the added task of having to figure out where you left off before you can start again. Blah! My Guest Dumpster has a lot of those babies piled atop the bed.

Lucky for me, Aunt Marcia is visiting for Thanksgiving so I have to get in there and deal with it.

Oh yes,  I'm supposed to be talking about lunch box ID tags. How easily I babble off into a tangent.

Just in case you are wondering why lunch boxes need ID tags, I'm going to tell you about my kids. Zoe Bug has never lost her lunch box. She is my responsible, conscientious, compliant child. Stinkerbell loses her lunch box at least once a week. And she has the attitude that it's not her problem. The nerve of that child. Last year she had a Star Wars lunch box--and so did every boy in her class. This year she got a Plain Jane, or John, black lunch box. And I'm thinking about beribboning it with sparkly ribbons and doodads. Because I'm a little bit passive aggressive.

So the ID tags are required in order to keep that vein in my temple from bulging, giving me an embolism, and thus ending my life. It's for my health. And possibly Stinkerbell's.

These tags are made out of the same wood I used to make the backpack ID tags, except they are half the size. Peanut Head cut one of the wood pieces in half for me, and I just gave them a couple sloppy coats of acrylic paint. I probably should have sanded the wood first, but I didn't see the point in making them beautiful when potentially they will be subjected to rotting food and violence in the classroom lunch crate.

The lunch crate is a scary place. I came back from summer vacation to discover two rotting lunch boxes had been left in my lunch crate, and one of them had a yogurt in it. Blech!

Anyway, two coats of paint, another coat of MOD Podge (I have to force myself to say it that way because I'm so bitter about the Mod Podge scandal) to keep the paint from bleeding onto the picture, slap a not-so-attractive school picture atop that mess, and hit it with another coat of MOD Podge, allowing time to dry between each coat. I repeated that scenario for the back of the tags where I wrote the girls' names, teachers, and room numbers on a sticker.

There's nothing fancy about these tags. They are pure function. But you can make yours cute if you want. I just can't since I know what happens in the lunch crate. It's spooky.

Backpack ID Tags Round Three

Every year I make new backpack ID tags for the girlies, and every year I try to come up with a way to make them more durable. I sure hope I have it this time.

Two years ago I used ID badges, but they got pretty beat up by the end of the year.

Last year I created them myself digitally, then laminated them with my laminator. They still got pretty beat up.

This year, I bought some little rectangular wood pieces at Michael's and turned them into the new and improved backpack ID tags for 2011-12.

First I painted the wood, then I Mod Podged my pictures right onto the wood. I added some ABC stickers for the names, and then Mod Podged the whole thing quite a few more times.

More Mod Podge means more strength, right? That's my theory.

Although I didn't take a picture of the backs, I put my contact information there in case the backpacks are lost.

Finally I used my trusty Crop-A-Dile to punch holes along the top for cute-ifying with ribbon. I put a 1-1/4" split key ring through the hole in the middle for attaching the tags onto the backpacks.

I'm really hoping that the third time's the charm, and that the Mod Podge did the trick.

Health Records Organized

Summer in our house is when we get caught up on all of our medical appointments, so last week I took the girlies for their annual physicals. As we were driving to the medical center, I realized that I had never blogged about their Health Record books.

Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit, what was I thinking?

I made these books for the girls when they were little bitty things. Sadly, I didn't think of putting one together when we were in the midst of Zoe's medical adventures, or her book would have been a wee bit fatter.

For the first year of Zoe's life, I spent a good many of her naps at the kitchen table, with medical bills spread out, trying to sort through all the details and making sure everything got paid by the insurance company. It was a nightmare.

After that experience, I vowed to always be prepared when it came to our medical history. I wanted something portable that I could jot down questions, record appointments and results, and then always have that information in one place to refer to while I was at the doctor's office. 

I started with just a small spiral bound notebook and added stick on notebook tabs.

The first section in my books is where I jot down questions that I want to remember to ask at the next doctor visit. This section alone has been a huge help, because I cannot be relied upon to remember things that are not written down. 

Which is why I am blogging about this thing that I love several years later than I should have. My bad.

The next section is where I keep track of immunization records and prescriptions.

Both of my girls have the little immunization cards that were given to them at birth, but who can read those things? Doctors have sloppy penmanship.

Yes, I'm making a sweeping generalization.

The other thing I don't like about the immunization cards, is they don't give any indication of when immunizations are due. I like to plan, you know.

Enter the spreadsheet with color-filled cells. As you can see, my spread sheet isn't perfect. I still missed a couple spots, but I'm dealing with it. I am calmed by the fact that the record is in chronological order. That, and I can see that May 11, 2004, was a very bad day for Stinkerbell.

Probably it was for me too. She was such a vengeful child.

I didn't take any pictures of prescription entries, but what I usually do is attach the receipt that has the date and what the prescription is. It's a quick way to keep a record of prescriptions.

This one is pretty self explanatory. Let me just put it out there right now, I have one of these books for myself, and it does not contain this section. For obvious reasons.

This is an example of the growth and development of Stinkerbell. I would have included Zoe's, but she's a bit of a runt and the progression isn't quite as spectacular.

Her mind was developing faster than her body. Yeah, that's it.

Zoe is my flower. Annika my weed.

Whoa, bad picture. But I'm not taking it again, even though it's making me a little twitchy.

So, as the label says, Medical History . . .

I still remember this entry. Annika was born with seriously bowed calves. In addition to that, she had these odd little feet that she used like hands. I used to call her my little monkey because she reminded me of a monkey when she would pick things up with her feet.

Her little monkey feet turned in, and they were sort of floppy when she walked. I was concerned, so I made an appointment with the Monkey Doctor.

Or maybe it was a Podiatrist. Or an Orthopedist.

Whatever, Monkey Doctor is easier to remember.

It turns out that her feet are fine, it's her hips. She has a freakishly large range of motion in her hips that allow her to do this:

And this:

Creepy, isn't it?

Since it appears to be another very bad day for Stinkerbell, let's just keep going with this, shall we?

Zoe had a weeping eye thing going on, so she was taking Amoxicillin. I put a dose of Amoxicillin in her sippy cup diluted with milk, and Annika yanked it out of her hands and took a couple swigs of it before I could intercede.

As a result, we found out that Annika is allergic to Penicillin because she broke out in a full body hivey rash.

I took these pictures two days after the initial exposure and one day after The Stink started taking Zyrtec to treat the allergic reaction. It didn't even occur to me to take these pictures for her Health Record until then. Doy.

Anyway, I have this picture and a few others in Annika's Health Record book to document her penicillin allergy.

As I mentioned, I made Health Record books for Peanut Head and I too. Except ours are not as pretty as the girls' books.

We have different sections too. Not just minus the scandalous Growth and Development section.

We do have the questions section though. I like to clip and save propaganda intended to scare people into ordering expensive medical tests, save them for my yearly, and pull them out of my handy dandy Health Record to confront my doctor with. I like to discombobulate him. 

For some reason, that sounds so dirty, but it's perfectly innocent. Good clean fun, I promise.

Peanut Head and I also have a section labeled Blood Tests. The main thing I watch and keep track of is our cholesterol. I need to know when it's time to stop with the bonbons.

I did my best making a spread sheet for my immunizations, but who knows if they're all there. My mom isn't the most organized person in the world, so these numbers could potentially belong to someone else. 

In fact, I think they do. Look at those dates. April 1966! That was the Olden Days.

Mom? Was I adopted?

Flexible Chore Charts

Back when school was about to start, I was sitting in my hairdresser's chair, waiting for her to finish working her magic, when I started lamenting about our chore charts and how the system just wasn't working for me anymore. Okay, I was whining. Is that better?

I've told you that my hairdresser is a magician, so I was very interested to hear what she had to say about chores. Lucky for me, she had a lot to say. We got into a big discussion about how we were tired of nagging our kids to finish their chores. To just stay focused long enough to get them done. Stop beating a dead horse and do the ding dang chore so you can ding dang play before you leave for college, PUH-lease!

I'm sure you are familiar with the scenario.

The Magician shared with me how she revamped her whole system by assigning just one chore to each kid per day. Every Monday they had the same chore. Every Tuesday they had the same chore, and so on. I was desperate and willing to try anything, so the schedule you see above is what we came up with. And guess what? It worked.

Mostly. I really like that there is just one chore to focus on because the kids aren't overwhelmed with a ginormous list. Now, they are still responsible for other "procedures" as I like to call them. Sneaky, yes, but that's what us moms are paid to be, aren't we? Oh wait. There is no pay.

All the more reason for us to do whatever the heck we want to do. My house is a small country and I am the Queen, and all that jazz. 

The "procedures" I'm talking about (by the way, snarky air quotes are required) are making the bed, picking up after yourself, brushing your teeth, etc. Basically, whatever I say they are, on any given day. I just point at the kid, say do blah-blah (please) and it is a "procedure," not a chore. Also, Saturdays, which are my cleaning days, they must be available to assist me at a moments notice. I make it a rule to never bend over to pick up anything that I didn't put on the floor, so it's mostly that sort of thing. "Pick up that creepy looking horse or I'm going to suck it up in the vacuum cleaner. Head first."

It works for me.

The nifty thing is that the kids are not doing fewer chores, but they think they are doing fewer chores.

The only part of this system that didn't work long term for us, was the same chore on the same day part. The problem is that some days we aren't home long enough to do even the one chore. Every week is different because there's always something going on it seems. It's probably like this for everyone, right?

Anyway, I've been thinking and thinking and thinking about how I can improve this system, and I came up with this.

You know how I love me some magnets, right? Well, couple that will some jumbo popsicle sticks, a little pretty paper, and some Mod Podge, and we're in business. They are very simple, but they are versatile.

Our chore charts have always had a home on the side of our fridge, so that part is still the same. Now each chore is on it's own popsicle stick under the responsible party's magnet face. We started with the three chores above, that each of the girls have to do at least once a week. Next, they took turns picking their chores.

These are the chores I gave them to pick from this go 'round. Aren't they lucky?

After they chose their chores, I moved them around a little bit so they wouldn't both get scoop litterbox on the same day. That would be a waste of a perfectly good chore, don't you think?

As you can see, our chores aren't tied to specific days, but instead we will rotate them in order. If we are home and the chore can be completed, as decided by myself and my mood of the moment, then each child will do the chore on top, then rotate it to the bottom of their stack. This way things still get done on a regular basis, but maybe not on June Cleaver's schedule.

Also, we can trade chores when they get tired of the chores they picked. We like to mix things up to keep them fun. Because chores are so fun.

I'm really excited about the 10-minute timed family pick-up. We've never done this one before, but I have high hopes for it. The idea is to set the timer for 10 minutes, and everyone runs around and tries to pick up and clean as much as they can before the timer goes off. Doesn't it sound like fun?

Okay, pretend then.

Here's the other part of the chore system that the Magician gave me. When the girls finish their chores they come to me to get a token, which is simply a poker chip. If they forget, the token is forfeited. This puts the pay out on them, and let me tell you, this is really working for me. Before, I felt like every time I turned around I was handing out allowance and printing out new chore charts. Now, I have more cash because they hardly ever remember. Not that I should be cheating my kids or anything like that, but I'm teaching responsibility, right? If you don't punch your timecard, you don't get a paycheck, right?

Do people even still use timecards? Did I just totally date myself? Let me guess, hourly wage earners are microchipped and as soon as they walk into the building, their time is noted by a computer off site, and their paycheck is delivered electronically to their bank without them ever knowing how it was calculated? Do I watch too much Sci-Fi?

Anyway, as I was saying, the poker chips are worth 25 cents each. They can't cash them in until they have $5 worth collected. Then I take 20% off the top for charity and savings.

The tokens also work great for bribing consequences. I can take them away if the girls misbehave, or I have to ask them more than once to do something, or not do something, whatever the case may be. I have to tell you also, they think the tokens are pretty cool. Losing a token is a big deal around here.

And it makes me feel powerful. Which I love.

I also put the tokens into play to curb some other undesirable habits, shall we say.

For example, if Annika gets up in the morning the first time we ask her, and she gets dressed, brushes her teeth, etc., the first time we ask her, she gets a token. If she doesn't, not only does she not get a token, but she can lose tokens if we have to ask her to get her gnarly carcass out of bed repeatedly.

For Zoe, if she wakes up without her hair looking like this,

she earns a token. If she wakes up and it does look like this, she can still earn a token if she takes care of it by herself. For example, like this:

Hey, whatever simplifies things for me, that's what works around here. I've had to work very hard at relaxing my standards.