New Lists for a New (Temporary) Life

Way too much to catch everyone up on right now, but suffice it to say, we're spending the school year in the US. Suprise! To everyone! Including us!

Hopefully, I'll be able to come back later and explain all of that, but right now, I've had a couple of requests to look at the morning, after school and bedtime lists I have adapted for this season.

Oh, did I not mention that the kids are going to school? For the first time? Ever? Well, they are. And, consequently, we have had to learn a whole new system, including lunch boxes and homework and PTF committee meetings (okay, so those aren't on the lists, but . . . ).

To keep my sanity (you may laugh right now), I updated our old lists, and then revised and revised them. I'm sure they'll undergo continual revision, but these are relatively final, so I thought I'd go ahead and post them. (We aren't doing individual family responsibility [aka "chore"] lists right now, because we're just doing chores as we have time. [Read: Mommy and Daddy are doing most of the work])

Hope these are helpful in spurring ideas for other families:
- morning list
- after school list
- bedtime list

You'll notice that ZL now has his own lists. He loves them. Seriously, he thinks it's so cool that he has his own lists. And, no, he does not watch TV from the time he finishes his morning list until the Bigs get home from school (although "Nick, Jr. is like preschool on TV!" ). We pull the plug relatively quickly, but this gives me an opportunity to have an extended Quiet Time on occasion (although it is pretty surreal to be listening to worship music via earbuds and have Olivia playing on the TV in front of you).

(My apologies for the funky format of some of the lists. They get simplified when they're uploaded to Google Docs, and they lose all of their pretty colors, etc.)

Updated lists

As an ongoing process of finding a system that works for family responsibilities, I've decided that we're going to "pass jobs down" primarily at birthdays and half-birthdays. Well, at least the Big Three's birthdays and half-birthdays, because it's convenient. :-/

MA & MS have birthdays in early February. JW's is in early July. So, they're exactly six months from each other. Thus, we'll "pass jobs down" in February and July.

So, the week of MA & MS's birthdays, I took a good look at the lists and determined what MS could take on new and what he and everyone else could pass down to the next youngest (MA had several empty slots to fill; don't know what I'm going to do with the jobs she "outgrows" in July, since ZL will probably not be ready to take them on).

For example, MA added putting away dishes (which she was excited about) and an allowance deposit, since she's now five, and several other odd jobs. Since JW was taking on the play area (which he does a meticulous, albeit slow, job of) as well as the family area, I dropped putting away dishes from his list and kept it on MS's, instead of passing that on to JW as I'd intended. MS is a very detail-oriented by nature (as is MA), and so, learning the homes for all of the miscellaneous kitchen items that go in the right-hand dish drainer was not a problem for him (mostly). It would be a great challenge for JW, so I chose to wait until he's older to train him in that. Just an example of how I hope to train all of the kids in doing all of the jobs around the house, but I want to take into consideration their giftings and preferences in how soon they learn certain things and how long they're responsible for them.

Bedtimes had been a particular challenge for a while, so we moved the boys from reading in the living areas at bedtime (which had kept them out of the communal bedroom and let the others settle in) to their beds with reading lights. For now, ML and I take turns sitting outside the door to their room (usually doing stuff on a laptop) while they settle in, which they have come to really like. This keeps the popping out of bed and training away from such limited to a shorter period of time, rather than dragging it out over two hours. So, they boys' bedtime lists reflect this. Also, to help with bedtime, we've been more consistent about getting the kids (and ourselves) up earlier in the mornings. So now, MS turns the alarm on each evening and off each morning along with turning off their sound machine and on the light.

So, here are the adjusted lists.
- morning lists
- bedtime lists
- MS daily & weekly
- JW daily & weekly
- MA daily & weekly

Family Responsibilities

You'd think with me being such a list-maker that I would have gotten down a system for chore lists for the kids a lot sooner. Instead, it's taken me years. And that's with me working on it off and on the whole time.

Within the last six months, though, I think we've finally hit on a system that works for our family, so I thought I'd share.

It is, of course, a series of lists. :-/

For the kids' "Family Responsibilities" (read: chores/jobs), they each have a daily and a weekly list. The daily jobs are done daily (bet you figured that out on your own), and the weekly list has a different job for each day of the week maximum (the younger ones have some days without weekly jobs).

Thanks to the magic of Google Docs, you can see the kids' (relatively recent) lists here.

- MS

- JW

- MA

The chart has no more than seven slots for daily jobs (which includes school work and putting away school books) just by virtue of the way it's set up. I like that, because it forces me to move jobs on down the line if I want to give the oldest a new responsibility.

The last job on each child's chart is "white board list." This has solved one of the issues that has plagued me with job systems: what to do with the jobs that are not needed on a scheduled basis. Once or twice a week, they have laundry to put away (from their baskets that I sort clothes into), but it's dependent on when I've had time to bring in and fold laundry. Trash builds up irregularly, and I don't want a half-empty bag being taken out, so we (read: MS) don't take it out unless it's full. I'm available to do laundry on different days, so it needs moving (from the washer to the dryer or to the back door to be hung out) sporadically. Etc.

Each child (and adult, for that matter) has a section of a white board with their initials for me to dole out these randomly-occurring jobs (see pic). Again, I am helped by seeing how many jobs I'm assigning to each child, so it's easier to balance (something I struggled with when I was just announcing that a job needed to be done; I more often gave it to my oldest than was really fair/necessary).

It took several iterations of the lists for us to settle on one that works (some wrinkles that needed to be ironed out), but we've had the same ones for a while now.

Then, one day it occurred to me that we were repeating the same things each morning and each evening getting the kids ready for the day and ready for bed: take off your pull-up and get dressed (we have bed-wetting issues), brush your teeth, clear the table, etc. And it dawned on me: we need more lists! :-P

So, now each child has a "Morning List" and a "Bedtime List." Do you know how much easier it is to say, "Bedtime list time!" than it is to say, "Okay, JW & MA put on pull-ups, MS put toothpaste on toothbrushes, everybody make sure your teeth are brushed, don't forget a stuffed animal and a water bottle..."?

And, yes, we sneak an extra chore or two onto those lists, but that's just because it's where they belong in the day, so that's where they go.

Two of my older children (MS & MA) thrive on lists. The other (JW), thrives on routine and stability. Our Family Responsibility lists and our Morning and Bedtime lists help everyone (including Mommy) make it through their day successfully.

ETA: In case you look at the lists and think I'm cruel for having MS clean my room for me, let me explain: our bedroom is twice the size of the other two bedrooms, and is only half bedroom, actually. The other half is school room/kids' computer area/my desk/puzzles/etc. That's the half that MS straightens. There, now I feel better.