Kelly Seeks

We all need reminders. However, I have my limit at repeating myself 4 different times per person in this family. It gets old fast and I get annoyed even faster, especially with the 4 I have. I have also come to the conclusion that was a maid in a former life. I picture myself as one of the ones in Downton Abbey. Milling around a grand mansion striking soot off Persian rugs and helping the Lady pick just the right piece of flare for tonight’s dinner with the Earl. And then reality sets in and I am scrubbing pee off the toilets, using my nails as a abrasive edge to peel who-knows-what off the dinning room table, and the only piece of flare I get to wear is the splash of blueberry smoothie on my shirt…that I wore yesterday. I have hit that threshold of “no one appreciates me” yesterday when I said goodbye to a dozen small deadly little bits and pieces I sucked up with the vacuum. So today, I am doing something about it.

Hubs and I have been battling in the past weeks on the next step with parenting. Our children are getting older, more responsible and understanding of the world around them and what we expect of them. It’s not cute anymore when they leave legos in the floor to be stepped on or when the sticker book threw up all over Diva’s room one afternoon. Actions will now equal consequences. We also decided it was about time the children start pulling their weight around here. Why else do you have kids? JK. However, the main battle we are having is should it be a paid system of chores or a list of household responsibilities?

I never got paid as a child for chores. I did what I was told with childhood resentment. However, it lead to adulthood gratification. I know how to clean a toilet, how to do the laundry and how to load a dishwasher with out looking for someone to hand me a quarter to do it. I was raised that it would your duty and responsibility to your home and your family to do your work.

This this is how it is gonna work. Everyone needs reminders. And from this point further I am going to stop verbally reminding everyone to do what they are suppose too (with the exception of SB). Yes, the rest of them has ASD and yes the rest of them have ADHD and see something shiney and there they go forgetting what they were suppose to be doing. But, I think it will benefit everyone in the long run and everyone will lead a much longer life. Even I have my own self reminders of work to do and things to remember. Don’t think this is just for little children. I am contemplating making one of these nifty do dads for Hubs.

I found the idea on Pinterest (who knew!). I adapted it to what materials I had on hand because I am thrifty like that. I used a diaper box we got from Costco and cut off all the folds with a sharp knife. Next, I took the chalk board door hanger off his door and used it as a template. However, if you do not have template handy you could probably do a “door hanger template” search on Google. After I traced out three, I used my sharp knife again to cut out the shapes. After that, I found some scrap scrapbook paper I had been saving and traced the template on the paper again. Again, I cut out the three paper templates. I grabbed my rubber cement and smeared some on both the backs of the cardboard and the paper templates and smashed them together. Lastly, I took my stash of Washib tape and clothes pins and got to work. I went on Pinterest again for ideas of responsibility, but mainly I just thought of what I had them doing daily already. We don’t have much time in the mornings so I left off any morning routines that needed to be followed. In the end it took about one hour to complete three.

They are so cute hanging on their doors…until Diva when to close hers and broke the clothes pins off in the door jam. So new solution? I grabbed a couple small 3M command hooks and slapped those babies on the front lower middle of the door and hung their reminder charts there.