Little Help

It's amazing the little things you learn along the way in motherhood. You set out with certain things that you want to do with your children, teach to your children, and priorities that are important to you, and as you work towards those goals, it's amazing what we, as the parents, learn in that process. 


Craig and I have always held to the ideals of teaching our kids to work, but honestly, for me, I can have a hard time letting them help. I want to, but sometimes when help means listening to whining, or seeing eyes roll, I'd rather just do it myself than go through the chaos of getting them to do it. Now, believe me, I haven't given up on them helping.  I'm always coming up with new ways to encourage to help out around the house without yelling (from them or me!). In our home, we don't pay for doing things around the house. If they want to earn money, they are going to have to go to the barn to work. This winter, we came up with a reward system for Eliza of earning minutes to play the Wii for doing her chores. It worked beautifully. Now the weather is turning nicer, the Wii is not being played very often, and chores have become a CHORE for Mom again. Eliza and Eric are still doing them, but it's often not very pretty. I have a new idea for a new system for chores - stayed tuned for more information on that coming soon!


However, when life is humming along sweetly, there are times when the kids pitch into help without even being asked, and it's the greatest feeling for me. Just last night, I sent Eliza up to her room with her basket of lined dried clothes to put away. She came down a short time later asking if she could change the sheets on her bed. I had told her the night before that I wanted to do that, but hadn't quite got to it that day. I was cleaning the downstairs floors, and told her to go ahead and change her sheets and directed her to where to find the correct size of sheets for her bed. I kept pushing the thoughts of "this could be a disaster" out of my head. After I finished cleaning the floors, I went up to her room and was pleasantly surprised with the fact that her bed was neatly made with fresh new sheets. The smell of Lysol hung in the air from a little over-spraying the mattress, blankets, and pillows, but all that was needed was a little help tucking the blankets in at the foot of the bed.  I was happy. Happy that she helped. Willingly. And I was happy with myself for seeing that although it was not perfect - it was good. And in this case - really good. 


Teaching children to do things around the house is a process. Children don't know how to fold towels or do dishes. They have to learn. Learning can be time consuming and frustrating. But, it can also be freeing. Just this morning, Eliza and Eric pitched in helping clean up the kitchen after breakfast. Eliza put the extra muffins into a bag and picked up the pile of magnetic letters that Easton had dumped on the floor. Eric put soap in the dishwasher and put the place mats on the table. Little contributions, but for every contribution they made, it freed a few minutes for me and helped us get through chores so that we could move onto more fun things.  Little things do add up to big things. And, so as they learn to help, I'm learning to let them. I'm learning to walk along side them and show them and not expect them to know how to do something just because I know how. There is much that little hands can do, and for that, I am thankful.