07/02/2012

1.  I got up this morning hoping to be fairly productive.  After breakfast, I sent the boys outside to pick up the backyard before it got too hot, and I went in the garage and gave the door I'm painting one more coat.  The rest of the day was kind of stressful because it felt like I was busy the whole day, but that I didn't exactly accomplish very much.

2.  I did manage to give the boys a thorough training in bathroom cleaning, though.  Ben took me upstairs and I showed the boys and they helped to give the boys bathroom a good scrubbing.  I wrote down a detailed 12-step process, and I'm hoping they'll be able to do it by themselves after this.

3.  Brigham got upset with me for giving them so many chores.  He said, "I hope next summer isn't going to be like this summer."  When I asked him why, he started crying and said it was because they weren't getting any free time this summer, I was just giving them chores to do all the time.  I'm sorry to say I lost it a little because the boys have had almost ALL free time this summer!  They've had a lighter chore-load than they do during the school year!  I told him that if he felt like he was overburdened with chores, it is because I have not been giving them enough chores to do.  If the little that they've been doing feels like a big deal, then they haven't been getting proper chore "workouts."  If an easy one mile run feels really hard, it's because you haven't been running long enough every day!  Poor Brigham.  He is my best helper, but that was not the right time to start crying and whining to me.
I really, really want the boys to start paying more attention and cleaning up after themselves more consistently, without me having to tell them every little thing that they need to do.  I told them I'm going to be a big nag over the next few weeks to help to remind them of this.  They're going to love it.  :-)

4.  We ended the day with FHE and a rousing game of Apples to Apples.  That's a fun game to play with my boys.  Mosey is funny-- basically you give him the card that LEAST represents the topic, and that's the one he'll pick.