Today went pretty much like the last couple. The kids were really good about everything except cleanliness. No baths/showers; toys, clothes, pillows strewn about the house; dishes piling up. But I think I was right about the steady-state thing. We have gotten bad enough that in order to make any new messes they had to clear some of the old mess just to have room to work.
It is clear that they don’t mind the mess, even if they do notice it. I just don’t think it matters to them either way. We had plenty of fun today, playing Old Maid and Go Fish, and carving pumpkins. There was absolutely no resistance or animosity to the idea of clearing a space for a new project. When they asked, “Can we carve the pumpkins now?” I said, “Sure, as soon as you clear a space to work.” They immediately went to work in a good natured way; no questions, no complaints, no body language that would lead me to believe they thought it was a burden. But there was also no attempt to clean ANYTHING beyond that necessary to work on the next project.
After dinner we went to pick Mom up from the airport after her weekend away. The kids were very excited to see her, but surprisingly, they didn’t have much to say one way or the other about their “challenge week.” Mom and I talked about it a fair amount, but the kids didn’t have much to add. When we got home we had a 30 minute clean-up, complete with a “lesson” on how to load the dishwasher. I was amazed at the lack of resistance. If anything, they seemed excited to learn how to load the dishwasher and even fought a little bit over who got to pour the detergent.
We decided not to spend any time tonight talking about how each of us thought the week went. We plan to do that at a family meeting tomorrow night. It will be very interesting to hear the kid’s perspective on the whole thing!
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