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"Large Family" books
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I don’t, actually. I closed it last summer when pregnant with baby #9. I just couldn’t devote the time it took to that and was paying for the hosting and such but had no time to write.
I do still update my other blog, about raising a child with Spina Bifida. You can find it at http://www.masonsbjournal.blogspot.com And that one has commenting closed because of serious problems with cruel comments (anti-large family, anti-raising a child with special needs, etc).
I’m always happy to chat here!
Tristan,
I’ve been thinking through chore routines here and will definitely be needing to change things before next school year since my two oldest and most reliable will be leaving for college. I like a lot of your ideas and am trying to figure out how to adjust them for our family.
I was wondering what you do about the rest of the kitchen chores like washing/drying dishes, clearing the table, putting away food, etc. Also, I noticed that you mentioned sweeping the floors for all rooms but not mopping. When does that happen and who does it? What about the bedroom cleaning – vacuuming/dusting/etc – not just picking up which I did see mentioned?
Thanks!I’ll try to answer your specific questions quickly:
washing/drying dishes is the job of the kitchen helpers of the day (older/younger child pair) and mom or dad. This is really just pans and large serving bowls for washing (everyone loads directly into the dishwasher their own dirty dishes). Drying and putting away is the same kitchen helpers.
Clearing the table – everyone removes their own dishes. Clearing serving dishes or food is the kitchen helpers and mom or dad.
Mopping – you noticed that? Mopping is something that doesn’t happen nearly often enough here beyond washing spots by hand as they happen (though that really does take care of a lot of the problem). Actual mopping happens whenever I finally do it, and I always do it right after the kids go to bed (so nobody slips on the wet floors) or right when we’re heading outside to play for a while.
Bedroom cleaning – bedrooms are cared for by those sleeping in them. Daily pickup. Once a week they laundry bedding and towels (or more if needed). Vacuuming in bedrooms is on Saturday and it is done by whoever volunteers to do it instead of trash cleanout. Saturday is trash cleanout and so I’m up in the bedrooms offering a trash bag for papers that they are done with and then walking up to the attic to change out a bin of toys if the kids are asking for it (this asking happens about every other week to every month). Dusting happens often – the little boys like dusting the house for fun.
Thank you, Tristan!
: ) on your mopping reply. I noticed because ours needs to be done fairly regularly (gets done once a week now plus spill wipe up but should be more) or I’m afraid someone will permanently stick to a spot.
We have pretty similar ages to you (19, 18, other 7 almost 15 down to 10 months and number of kids so I’m finding your input very helpful. I do have more questions however : ).
Do you find that your kitchen helpers feel overloaded on their kitchen days since they also have house cleaning chores and school or does it go fast enough that it doesn’t seem to be a big deal?
Do you start the kitchen helpers at age 4 also?When you have medical or other appts, do you just cancel the house chores for that day or have them do them at another time or something else entirely? We don’t have the level of chronic medical that you do with Mason but we have lots of medical and lots of emergencies that can interrupt the normal flow of the house on a fairly regular basis.
Thanks so much!
-Rebecca
The kitchen helpers don’t mind their days generally. They get 5 days off, and their 2 days in the kitchen are not back to back.
Chores happen daily regardless of medical appointments. If I’m gone with Mason the kids do the chores without me there. If we are all out the door early for something then chores get moved to later in the day.
And we take Sunday off of assigned chores. Instead, everyone helps with the basics (pickup of floors, meals, dishes) and everything else waits for Monday.
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