New Charts

This adorable, fuzzy picture is what I found on my camera, apparently after Paige got a hold of it. This is her most prized baby and she is very serious about it when it suits her to be. Too bad I'm a little afraid to throw her in the wash!

In preparation of school starting we started in on the early morning hours yesterday. We had Sunday night bedtimes of 7:15pm and at 7am the next day I woke Trenton up and we jumped right in. We had changed around charts and made sure they were all ready to go the night before. The kids all had their charts done by 8:15am and then we moved on to cleaning day and finished that by 10:30. It was great! The excitement of all the new chores and different arrangement of things verses in the summer was apparent. Even Tyler (who does NOT like to be told to do his chart) got his stuff done happily and continued to help me with any tasks I asked of him throughout the day. I guess I put enough excitement into the air...??!!
I found this app for my phone that has charts on it. It keeps track of all the kids stuff and rotates the days that they have to do certain things - only some chores have to be done everyday. The kids think it's awesome because it's just like how mom checks off her chart (on the phone) and they like having an excuse to stop and use said phone.
So, this morning Paige was insisting that she needed to check something off. Well, that's great, but I don't let her play with my phone all by herself. I was wiping counters off and still had a few minutes. I asked her to hold on and I'd help in just a minute. She ran and got my old phone (now her favorite toy phone) and started 'checking off' doing her hair, so she told me. Of course this was all very serious.
Basically, she gets it. She understands that she does a chore and then gets to 'check it off'. Hilarious! And awesome! I'm completely fine with her thinking that phones are for managing tasks.
I guess whatever motivates is good enough for me! I think around Christmas time I'll have to revamp charts again and hope for the same effect!!