The good, the bad, and the ugly

The kids are often very good helpers.  When directly supervised (sometimes with prodding), they stay on task, get a lot done, and even have fun doing it.

 

Gwyn, Maddie, and Lana washing dishes

 

Lana, Maddie, and Gwyn making Cary’s birthday cake

Everett cooking meat for Cary’s birthday lasagna

Cary enjoying his birthday lasagna (His birthday was in May, and the kids did a great job getting everything ready and making cards for him.  They also enjoyed sampling everything)

Lana, Maddie, and Gwyn helping in the garden

 

Like I said, they are good little helpers when supervised.  But it gets a little ugly when they’re not supervised.  Unfortunately, that has happened more often than I would like since I have been rather tired/nauseated for the last almost 19 weeks.  Sometimes I nap whether I want to or not.  Sometimes everything’s fine when I wake up, and sometimes it’s a disaster.

Today we came home from church, I got lunch for everyone, then I had to take a nap.  When I woke up, the livingroom was trashed.  We had to get ready to go to dinner, so I had the kids do a quick clean up and off we went.  We got home at bed time, so I told them to put their shoes away and get ready for bed.

I got the kids to bed (there was carrying on, water all over the bathroom, etc, but it got done), and then Cary informed me that our home teachers would arrive in about half an hour.  I went downstairs and nearly keeled over.  No one had put their shoes away and the livingroom was still covered in toys, books, trash, etc.  I quickly cleaned it all up, thinking all the while “I shouldn’t be doing this.  I should be saving this for the children to clean up tomorrow.”  But I would be too embarrassed for anyone to see our house in that state.  I came to the conclusion that anything I had to clean up would disappear.  Tomorrow the children will find that they have no toys to play with, no books to read, and no shoes to wear.  We’ll see how this goes.  I need to be able to ask them to do something and have it get done whether I’m watching them or not.  Do you think it will work?  I sure hope so.  I’m getting tired of the mess and destruction.