Brace yourself.

George (who is 7) takes tumbling. Which is the perfect extracurricular activity for him since he’s been cartwheeling his way through this house for the better part of 8 months.

He’s one of only 2 boys in a sea of girls in there, but he holds his own pretty well. I mean, as long as Ross shows up.

Tonight as they were stretching, they went into the splits. The gymnastics coach commented that the girls should all be embarrassed since George (who has rubber bands for limbs) can get all the way into a split, and most of the girls cannot.

So on the way home, David informed George that when they got here, George should tell Grace that he had mastered his splits.

(Grace shares George’s enthusiasm for all things gymnastics but she’s 5′ 3″ and counting, and having her doing cartwheels throughout this house is flat-out dangerous, so she just lives vicariously through him.)

To this suggestion, George responded, “I can’t do it again tonight. I’ll break my nuts.”

“George, you can’t say that,” informed David.

“What do you mean?” asked George.

“Well, you can’t say ‘nuts’ in that context. It’s not really appropriate. Just so you know.”

“Well, I just mean my penis!” clarified George.

“Um, okay, but…” stated David.

“And plus, this is confusing,” continued George. “I mean, if I can’t say ‘nuts,’ what if I’m at a baseball game and I want to buy some nuts because I’m hungry and I like nuts. Can I not order nuts?”

“George,” said David, feeling a bit manipulated, “Of course you can order nuts at a baseball game. Those are two different uses of the word ‘nuts.’ Like, take the word ‘dam.’ If I say, ‘I want to drive over and look at the dam,’ that’s fine, but I can’t say, ‘Damn, this traffic is terrible!”

“OH, I GET IT!” exclaimed George. “I’ll go home, show Grace how I do the splits, and then say, ‘I just broke my damn nuts!”

We have a long way to go here folks.

bucket full of cleaning supplies

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.

***

What is your best chore completion strategy?

security camera on a brick wall

I won’t survive the discovery of yet another poor choice.

And by “poor choice,” I mean candy wrappers stashed behind the upstairs couch, wads of gum permanently adhered to the carpet fibers, or my best scissors jammed into the dirt that cradles Stella, my favorite potted plant.

I. Won’t. Survive.

When I came across such atrocities in the past, I calmly asked who would like to claim responsibility. Come on, it’s not like I appeared with bulging veins, a scowl, and a paddle. In fact, I believe my exact words were often, “No one will get into trouble. I JUST WANT YOU TO TELL ME THE TRUTH GOD DAMMIT!”

Okay, so I didn’t say god dammit. Not after that one time in 2007.

Calm approach notwithstanding, my sensitive ear drums were consistently met with a beautifully harmonized chorus of my children’s favorite song, which is titled — appropriately enough — “It wasn’t me.”

I suppose I could dangle the promise of sugar to whomever actually tells me the truth, but I think that approach would really be frowned upon.

A few days ago, I discovered a purple crayoned tic-tac-toe board on the couch. Since the dogs are actually neither smart nor stupid enough to do something like that, and Grace has outgrown such antics, I knew the perpetrator was male, under 4′ 8″, and human.

Desperation to have someone claim responsibility just once took over.

“You know,” I mentioned, “Papa and I have installed security cameras in several of the light sockets. All I have to do is go watch the the footage to find out who really did this. And if I have to do that, whoever did do it is in very big trouble.”

The 3 male humans under 4′ 11″ who reside here stood still as statues, only their eyes moving back and forth in an attempt to read their neighbor’s minds.

“Fine. It was me,” relented Henry.

OH MY GOD THEY ACTUALLY BOUGHT IT!

Which has become more interesting each time someone does something, as they now engage me with, “I didn’t do it, Mom. I swear. Just go look at the footage.”

I might be screwed.

***

Do you have any “secret weapons” for getting the truth out of your children?

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