Chores and allowance. On their own, each topic gets me tapping my foot at record speed. Address them simultaneously and I tap and begin frothing at the mouth.

Which is why we just did away with both. For a time.

Not a long time.

Because there are 7 of us here (plus two dogs) and it doesn’t stay clean long.

And the gunk that somehow ends up in unfathomable places was not created by moi. I mean, maybe the very small blob of blue toothpaste in my sink was, but I can assure you that neither the tube of toothpaste that was seemingly squeezed a la caulk into the grout in the kids’ bathroom nor the glob of god-knows-what that I found when I turned out front porch cushion right-side-up today (because, quite obviously, to a child turning the cushion over is FAR less time consuming than cleaning it).

Chores are hard in a home with 5 kids. One kid gets assigned the living room, but then claims that nothing strewn across the living room was deposited by him. One is assigned his own room, and then claims that a ghost mysteriously put all of his clothes underneath his bed instead of hanging them on hangers.

I find it equally hard to leave the house in this state of disarray to go to the store wherein the kids are simultaneously begging me to buy them things all. the. time. Things like packs of gum and baseball cards. Things that (in my opinion) they should be saving and budgeting their own money to buy.

So a few weeks ago I again attempted a chore chart and corresponding currency rewards to go with it. And while I may be tempting fate by doing so, I’m going to predict that brilliance has finally fallen upon me. Because at 11:14 this past Sunday, Henry was vacuuming the steps, Jack was steam cleaning the tile, Grace was folding laundry, and Nina (who’s 1) was proactively lining up her shoes. George was shooting spit balls from a straw at all aforementioned chore-doers, but hey, three out of four ain’t bad.

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What is your best chore completion strategy?