Working For A Living

Some of you may have noticed (and wondered at) my 7-year-old doing the laundry. Makes it look as though I'm teaching them the value of teamwork and responsibility, right? But appearances are deceptive. First of all, it ain't quality work. If you ever eat here, make sure to rinse your silverware first. Second, the children aren't exactly running around singing, "Whistle While You Work." Instead, my kids all sound as though they work in a union shop -

"It's Tuesday, it's not my day to empty the dishwasher - I set the table."
"Rachel empties the silverware - I do the dishes."
"I watched Susie yesterday for 20 minutes. It's Theo's turn."

Sheesh - do those seem like the sounds of teamwork and responsibility to you? I doubt it.

Occasionally Larry or I will do all the dishes, and each time we're amazed at how easy the job is. What with all the whining and groaning that goes on around here, you'd think we were asking the kids to move 2 tons of rubble from the sink to the dishwasher each evening. But we persist in assigning them the chores, because otherwise they'd be sitting around fighting with each other while Larry and I did all the work.

Theo went out and got himself a seasonal job at Barnes and Noble. I wanted to call the person who hired Theo and say, "He is handsome, isn't he? And so responsible! You won't be sorry you hired him, I promise you." But I restrained myself.

I have no idea why I am so excited - must be a first-born thing.

I told Anna she had to finish her schoolwork from the past week before she could go out this weekend, and she didn't even break anything. We consider that progress. She did mope around in her bathrobe until past noon, however. Now she's out babysitting and acting like a normal human being. None of my friends believe a word I say about her. Maybe she should consider a career on the stage.

David is still trying to construct a functioning space station out of duct tape and craft sticks. I can't tell if he is really, really smart or really, really stupid. And he just informed me that the amount of paint on a jumbo jet adds almost 600 pounds to its weight. Like me and Christmas cookies...

Larry spent today painting the kitchen, in an attempt to atone for the fact that he ripped out my kitchen floor over 2 weeks ago even though the tile guy isn't coming until December 14. The job went fairly quickly, as he didn't have to worry about getting paint on the floor. Because it isn't there. Or have I mentioned that already?

Time to stop goofing off and start cleaning up around here. Though it is hard to tidy things when all the kitchen furniture is in the living room and there are boxes of kitchen floor tile distributed throughout the main floor of the house. Not exactly the relaxed, uncluttered look I strive for...