Play It Again, Momma: Lots of Chores for the Clark Kids

Posted on May 14, 2009 by Amy

Chores are an important task in the Clark household and one of the benefits about our children getting older is that they can pitch in more. Since most chores seem to fall in the lap of mommy, I am thrilled that chores haven’t lost their novelty yet and that my son loves to help mommy get things done around here.

Do I know that the novelty will wear off soon? Of course! I am going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Here are some reasons why chores are important in my house:

- I am grooming my child to someday be a self-sufficient adult. I don’t want my kid going to college and not knowing how to make himself/herself a sandwich, do a load of laundry, or have to be dependent on the people around them.

- I want my kids to know that we are a family unit and in a family unit, it is important for everyone to pitch in. Occasionally, I will hear my son say that he is “bored” with chores or “too tired” to help me out. That is tough luck in this house because everyone has to put forth an effort so that we can ALL enjoy having a clean and organized home.

- Chores are a great teaching opportunity. Sorting clothing by colors teaches your child to group colors together, folding clothing helps them build fine-motor skills, working at a fast pace (setting a timer for completing certain tasks) can be a fun way to exercise.

- I want my son to be a catch someday. Yeah, I am looking waaaaayyyy down the road, but that is sometimes in the back of my mind. What girl would not want to marry someone who knew how to wash his own laundry, could whip up a lovely dinner for her, or who picked up after himself? Those are attributes that would have been on my list when choosing a mate and I want my son to have those kind of attributes too…not only for himself, but for whoever he might end up with someday.

Here are what chores we do in our house:

- My son ( 5 yr old) has to get himself dressed in the morning, put his pajamas in his hamper, and make his bed before coming downstairs.

- He helps me prepare the evening meal and helps set the table for our dinner.

- Emily (2 yr old) & Ethan both have to help pick up their toys before they go to bed in the evening. We put on fast and crazy dance music, set the timer for ten minutes, and the whole family pitches in to pick up the playroom.

- On house cleaning day, Ethan is responsible for picking up his room for me to vacuum and dust it and he has to make sure the playroom is in order. We typically clean while my daughter lays down for her nap so this is a solo operation. I have moved my cleaning day to coincide with our Friday night family night. Basically, it is total bribery and we have to get the playroom picked up so that they can have a pizza and a movie with mommy and daddy. It works out really well.

- Ethan sorts our laundry. I line the hampers up and the baskets and he sorts the laundry for me. He also helps fold the laundry when I wash it.

Here is what I had to overcome in order for this to work in our house:

- Teaching chores is a tedious process, but it is worth the time and effort spent. It took him awhile to get the hang of sorting the loads so we would start with a “question” pile which saved us all time. If he didn’t know where something went, he would put that in a separate pile and we would talk about each item as we threw it in the correct basket.

- Things will not be done perfectly and I needed to get over that. When my son helps fold the laundry, it is not going to look like I folded the laundry, or like when I set the table, or have all the toys exactly where I would have put them. This is when you take your “mommy dearest” issues down a notch and enjoy being a mom and having someone to help you.

- I try to use our chore opportunities, not as a time to direct, but to talk with my kids. As we work on putting dinner together and setting the table, we talk about our day at school. It isn’t always this way, but I try to reserve this special time with them.

What chores do your children do and what are their ages?

Happy Earth Day

Posted on April 22, 2009 by Amy

Happy Earth Day, everyone! I hope that you can do something fun and green with your children today. Not sure what to do? Perhaps, a little Earth Day reflecting might be a fun activity for celebrating all that this earth means to us.

I wanted to share with you some of our pictures from our family night activity celebrating Earth Hour on March 28th. The Earth Hour was officially after the kids went to bed so we celebrated our Earth Hour an hour earlier so that they could participate in all of the fun before their normal bed time.

I got out their sleeping bags and made a little camp out area in our living room. We played with my favorite little vintage domino set, they sang songs, they got lots of fun roughhousing in with daddy and tickles from mommy, and we finished the hour with a special little snack by candlelight.

My favorite moment was when Emily began making her own lyrics up to songs and began singing, “I can’t see where I’m going, I can’t see where I’m going.” as she & her brother marched and sang in the dark.

These are those little moments that I will always treasure in my heart!

Ideas for Celebrating Earth Day With Kids:

Celebrating Earth Day

Family Night: Earth Hour

Craft Green: Eco-Friendly Tutorials (@ the long thread)

Earth Day Crafts & Activities (@ Kaboose)

Earth Day Coloring Pages & Printables (@ DLTK’s)

How will you be spending Earth Day with your family?

Writing Love Notes To Your Child

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Amy

Ethan is doing really well with his reading in school and I am so pleased to see the delight in his face as he sounds out the words and puts sentences together. Is there anything more exciting than the newness of discovering how cool reading is?

He was sent home a worksheet of words that we needed to work on as a family with him. They are words that he needs to know and be able to read by the end of the school year. I was sitting down with him and pointing to words and he would say them. We did this for a couple of days and he looked up at me and told me, “Mom, this is so boring!” You know what? He was right! I was bored too and the task seemed like a chore.

The next day that he came home, I told him that I wrote him a note just for him. In it, were words from the list that he needed to recognize. He came back downstairs and told me “Mom, I don’t know those words.” I gave him a pat on the back and told him, “Just read my note and you can sound it out while you eat lunch.”

I went down to fold a load of laundry and he came running down the stairs, grinning from ear to ear. “Mom, I know what it says!” He then recited my note word for word.

We have made a pact to do this each day and I will write him a new note just for him.

As teachers, we sometimes have to be more creative than pointing and reciting. It has now become our fun little game that I hope he will remember for years to come!

Do you have any fun ways you have taught your children about reading or writing?

Family Night Activity: Earth Hour

Posted on March 27, 2009 by Amy

Earth Hour 2009 is upon us and I wanted to encourage you all to enjoy a family night celebrating Earth Hour. Earth Hour is March 28th from 8:30 PM-9:30 PM this Saturday.

Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008 the message had grown into a global sustainability movement, with 50 million people switching off their lights. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all stood in darkness.

In 2009, Earth Hour is being taken to the next level, with the goal of 1 billion people switching off their lights as part of a global vote.

Our family celebrated Earth Hour last year and my son still talks about it. It was definitely one of our favorite family nights ever and a great way to share about caring for the earth.

I had been looking forward to Earth Hour all week and sharing this experience with my family. We talked to Ethan about why we were celebrating Earth Hour and how much fun we were going to have. Since Earth Hour was between 8-9 PM last year, it was a special treat for the kids to stay up late and spend the hour with us.

The kids took a bath by candlelight, which they thought was a super fun treat! We filled the tub with lots of bubbles and threw in a couple of whisks and spoons from the kitchen. They whisked up bubbles to their hearts delight and sang fun songs by candlelight.

Ethan thought he looked pretty cool in front of the candles so he took some time out of his busy schedule to pose!

After our baths, we enjoyed a yummy snack while Ryan & I made shadow puppets on the wall for the kids. They thought these were hilarious and super cool!

Ethan had so much fun, he asked if we could celebrate Earth Hour every day! This gave me an opportunity to share with him easy ways he could celebrate AND save the earth. We talked about doing our recycling, turning the lights off when we aren’t in a room, and not being wasteful. Since this family night was such a hit, I hope we can do it with the kids again. Not only did the kids have a blast, but it was super frugal, while being extremely memorable for all of us!

Play It Again, Momma: Rainy Day Survival Kit

Posted on March 24, 2009 by Amy

Spring is almost here in Indiana and with it comes those rainy days! I will be working on restocking our little suitcase for those days ahead and I hope this offers a fun idea for keeping your children entertained when the bad weather strikes!

I have been wanting to work on this project for some time, and since it was miserable weather all weekend, it seemed like the perfect time to tackle this project. I went to Goodwill and found a plain leather suitcase for $5. I gave it a good scrubbing, when I got it home, and proceeded to decorate it with some knick knacks from my craft supplies. I tied a big bow on the handle and made it look super cool for the kids. If you have older, children, you could invite them to help you! I applied the buttons and ribbon with my trusty hot glue gun.

Hmm… I wonder what could be inside? Let’s take a peek, shall we?

It might not look like much to you and me, but to my kids…well, this is a good couple of hours of enjoyment. Inside here I have coloring books, crayons, a deck of cards, pipe cleaners (yes, I told you it wouldn’t look like much to us), a 100 piece puzzle, little spinning princess tops, yo-yos, dinosaurs, a little jewelry set with a crown, board games, quiet instruments, and books. Some of the items were “new” and purchased from the thrift store, some were items that I had been rotating and storing because no one was playing with them, and some of them were purchased from the dollar store. I would say even with the cost of the suitcase, there is probably about $15 of stuff invested here, but it is OH SO WORTH IT!

You could pick activities based upon how involved you really want to be with this. If you are looking for a little sanity break, I would suggest putting things in there that they could enjoy playing with by themselves or with their siblings. If you are looking for a good time to bond with your kids, put things in there that you can do with them like board games or stuff for art projects. If you are super smart, you will have a case of each- momma needs a break suitcase and momma wants to be your awesome friend suitcase.

This is such a hit in our house! Ethan keeps asking if it is wet on the ground because he wants to play with this special stuff. Pretty sad when your kids are begging for rainy days, but it makes me feel like this was a great idea and a great way to keep them occupied! Being a Midwest girl, I am sure I will have plenty of days to really use this. If I lived in Seattle, I might have to have a few hundred of these so they wouldn’t get tired of the same old stuff.

Might I just add that this would be a great birthday gift for a child and would be a wonderful addition to a grandparent’s house too! I am thinking this would be something fun that I could put together for my nephews or would be a great way to store a little girl’s dress-up clothes. The possibilities really are endless.

Halloween Fun

Posted on November 5, 2008 by Amy

This was a fun year for us as parents because both of our kids finally “got” all the trick-or-treating fun. We kept our costumes fun & frugal this year. Emily was a bumblebee, which was a costume hand-me-down from her big brother. Ethan also kept changing his mind until the very last minute so I waited until Target marked the Halloween costumes down to 30% off and got his super cool ninja costume at a little lower price than I would have gotten it normally.

We tried to keep Emily out of the candy, but she managed to get into and suck on a purple sucker while we went door to door. The evening ended with a sucker stuck to her hair & bumblebee costume so that will require a good washing this week.

We loved going around and seeing all of our great neighbors and showing off how big our children were. We have plans to put the costumes on again this week to go see all of the grandparents since we weren’t able to squeeze that in with me heading out of town in the morning. Any excuse to wear the costume again and get more of our money’s worth out of it seems like a smart plan to me!

I hope you enjoyed the festivities, whatever they may have been, with your families!

Our Autumn Book Basket

Posted on November 4, 2008 by Amy

I hit the library this past week and picked up some books for the kids with some really great autumn themes in them. Our library conveniently pulls all of the holiday books for us when the holidays come around so it makes it easy to put a seasonal basket together.

Ethan made a sign for our basket that said, “Happy Fall.” I wrote this out on a piece of paper for him and he practiced writing it for the basket. He drew a cute little jack-o-lantern on it because it was something that represented fall to him.

In our fall basket you will find the following books for the season:

Happy Haunting, Amelia Bedelia

Luther’s Halloween

Beauty & the Beaks

Minnie and Moo & the Thanksgiving Tree

Richard Scarry’s The First Thanksgiving of Low Leaf Worm

The Thanksgiving Door

Thanksgiving is Here

I look forward to switching out the books with the holiday season and getting a chance to read all of these great stories with the kids. I picked some beginning readers so we can work on Ethan’s reading skills, but I also picked books that I could read to them. Our favorite so far has definitely been, “Thanksgiving is Here” because it reminds us so much of our own crazy Thanksgiving dinners with family!

What are some of your favorite autumn reads? Do you have any books to recommend for our seasonal basket?

Piggy Pancakes

Posted on August 19, 2008 by Amy

I made piggy pancakes for the kids and they were a huge hit! I wasn’t sure if they would be able to figure out what they were so I let them guess. They decided these were cow pancakes instead so who knows what animal your own kids might pick?

I made a batch of this pancake batter. It is my absolute favorite because it doesn’t require any fancy ingredients and can be made out of everything in your pantry. The pancakes remind me of the McDonald’s pancakes and I absolutely could devour a few stacks of those in one sitting.

To save a little bit more money, I make a batch of powdered milk to mix into the pancakes. It isn’t a huge savings, but it saves me from making multiple trips for milk throughout the week.

You will want to make one large pancake and two silver dollar sized pancakes. When you see the bubbles bubbling up on top, give them a flip and cook until they are cooked through.

I used kitchen scissors and cut one of the small pancakes in half and slipped it under the large pancake, to make the ears. Plop a small pancake on top for the snout and use blueberries or chocolate chips for the eyes.

For preschoolers, you could tie in any good barnyard book or my personal favorite…”If You Give a Pig a Pancake.”

And My Heart Breaks…

Posted on August 12, 2008 by Amy

I woke up this morning to red eyes and a tear-stained pillow because I had been anticipating the big event in our house. I still can hardly believe that he went to school today.

Last night we went to his back-to-school night and met his teacher. Ethan spent the evening working on a card to bring her and we got apples at the supermarket so he could give her one. When he walked in with his apple and card, he was so excited to hand it to her. “Will she put it on the corner of her desk, mommy?” I think he saw this on a show or in a book somewhere because the apple placement was almost more important than the apple itself. When she thanked him for the apple and centered it on her desk, he pointed to the corner of her desk. “Could you put the apple here instead?” She grinned, but obliged. I tried to make quiet small talk with the teacher and signed my name on the volunteer sheet. It took everything in me to not say things like, “My son is so amazing- you have no idea how amazing he is! He is so incredibly gifted and smart! Will you love having him around as much as I have?” I didn’t want to be that mom though so we said our goodbyes and held hands as we walked out the door.

It’s funny, when my daughter looks at a picture of our family she points at each person and says their name. “That’s my mommy. That’s my daddy. That’s my Ethan.” The inflection and the possessiveness of that phrase let’s you know just how special he is. He is hers and only hers. He is her big brother, her hero, and her best friend.

As I watch him climb the bus, that possessiveness rings in my heart. That’s my boy. That’s my colicky baby. That’s my stoic toddler. That’s my bubbly preschooler. That’s my gentle & kind son. That’s my Ethan. My. My. My.

Bittersweet.

At the Car Wash: Part II

Posted on July 30, 2008 by Amy

This summer, the kids really loved getting to wash their own cars, but my neglected car was in need of a car wash too. Isn’t that why we have kids though? Might as well put these able-bodied children to work, that’s what I say!

Emily worked on the car with an old baby washcloth and Ethan used daddy’s official car scrubber.

I loved their looks of total concentration. They took their task very seriously and Emily kept wanting to show us how yucky the water was. I am the same way though when I scrub our floors. I just have to have other people witness the gross factor- you just can’t experience that alone.

I don’t know if I should mention this every single time, but I do feed this kid. These shorts are 3T and falling off of him still. I see pictures like these and feel like I should make a disclaimer- this kid eats me under the table. Oh, to have that metabolism!

Where in the world is their supervisor though? Oh, I think I found him sitting on the step watching the kids work. I don’t think we should ever claim to be parenting experts!

He had to break out the big guns though and show the kids how to clean the roof of the car. They thought this part was hilarious.

What’s a car wash though without a little water play afterwards? Ethan thought this part was definitely the best. Best of all, I have a clean car AND two exhausted workers to prove that this was a family event worth repeating!

Tag Archives: Parenting