I decided yesterday that today was going to be the day that I made decisive steps towards getting the boys more involved in the upkeep of the house, the day I would work alongside them instead of working around them, the day I would alternate writing with engaged activities for each of them.
You can smell the fail from there, can’t you.
My plan was to write for 30 minutes, play for 30 minutes, then get The Little Guy to do some stuff around the house with me (putting laundry away, baking some muffins etc).
Of course, TLG, woke at 5:40 and bugged me for the next hour and a half, wanting to wake his brother and play a video game (not happening!). Then, it was interrogation morning as everyone had intense questions. By the time I sat down to breakfast after The Man and The Boy left, I was already tired.
That’s when The Little Guy went into action, demanding snacks, asking when I was going to play, climbing on me. To put this in perspective, he had already had his breakfast, and he usually watches TV for a while after that. This morning he refused to watch TV, and wanted a new activity every 5 minutes (that is NOT an exaggeration) all while I was trying to work.
Alas, there is no explaining to a 4 year old that there is a good trade for leaving Mommy alone for 30 minutes (he would have gotten 60 plus minutes of uninterrupted Mommytime). So it took me over an hour to get my 30 minutes of work done.
Now I feel all jittery and cranky and I am not at all enthused for the afternoon of activities I had planned.
Perhaps I should have stuck with my usual slackery. 🙂
I feel your failpain. I have been working with my big boys–who, at 9 and 11 should really be able to get this down–on taking over certain chores for, oh, I dunno–nine or ten months now? Sure, they DO them, but the halfassery and complaining and whining before, during and after chores commence makes me sometimes wonder if it’s even worth it. You are getting a head start on me; stick with it! It really does get better and I soothe myself with the knowledge that they won’t go off to college completely helpless when it comes to doing dishes and laundry.