I decreed today Cleaning Day, as I am apt to do about once every few weeks when the mess sufficiently horrifies me and I decide the kids need to pitch in with cleaning, since probably 99% of the mess is theirs. Every time I do this, I have to come up with a new way of conning them into helping. The simple things--bribery, threats, checklists--stopped working long ago. These days I have to make them think that the cleaning itself is going to be some amazingly fun task: spray bottles to clean the floor, money hidden where they're cleaning, jobs they usually aren't "allowed" to do but "just this once" can get away with. They seem to be on to me now, though, and the same trick doesn't work twice.
I'm running out of options, so today's idea probably wasn't the stroke of genius I considered it to be at the time. I made up a list of all the jobs that needed to get done, and then let everyone pick a marker. They got to take turns picking a job from the list and calling it by marking near it with their color, then could cross it off with their assigned color after completing it. Thankfully, they didn't ask if I was going to count up how jobs each of them did or give them a reward or anything--I had nothing in mind. The "fun" of picking their own work and using markers was supposed to be good enough. I can see that was where I erred. (Well, that and expecting these kids to do ANYTHING properly unsupervised.)
It started well enough. Jobs got picked and crossed off. I got to start on the dishes knowing everyone could consult the list, and not me, for orders. Except then Brian crossed off the dishes with his red marker, even though it wasn't his job, let alone done, and I felt OCD enough to need to rewrite the entire list to fix it. Then Erin crossed off the bookshelf instead of the tv area that she'd just done. I griped at her to just do the bookshelf next, then, because I wasn't going to write the list AGAIN. Then everyone picked a sweeping job. At once. When we only own one broom. And said broom cannot be in the kitchen, bathroom, and hallway, held by three different people, at once.
When the Broom Wars had concluded and the kids were starting to escape out the front door to play, I decided to check in and see what had been done...inspection time.
At first, all looked good. The TV area had been organized, bookshelf straightened, and the living room was swept. Nice!
Then I moved on to the kitchen. Apparently Brian felt the need to return the dirty dishes to the top of the stove after cleaning it. The stove itself was shiny, though, so I let it go.
Our dining table had been cleared off...kinda. While I appreciated the lack of dirty dishes and napkins, I am not quite sure what possessed Erin to think that the wadded-up kitchen rug would be a good addition to the place where Brian eats. Nor do we particularly need an Easter basket, paper towel roll, or giant bag of chips there.
Still, there had at least been improvement. But I think it was at this point the kids stopped applying themselves. Supposedly this was a freshly swept and mopped kitchen floor:
It was a nice touch to replace overturned trash cans and dirty laundry in the exact spot where they'd been found, right? Never let it be said that my kids lack attention to detail. Even the sand on the bathroom floor had been returned to its hiding spot along the wall behind the door after that room had been "swept" and "mopped."
And while I didn't realize that I'd written "Organize a WWE wrestling match to take place on Erin's bed" on the list, apparently the boys found that there in invisible ink or something, because that's what they moved on to next, instead of picking toys or clothes up off bedroom floors. It was at this point I decided the only part of the house that *really* needs to be clean is the front entryway, and since that's done...it's quitting time.
The next time I plan a cleaning day, I'm thinking I'll do it Simpsons-style, and just start throwing sticks of dynamite around. It'll look the same, and take less than half the time.
