Easier Isn’t Always Better

I am having a glorious day. Beautiful weather. Dirt under my fingernails. Nothing on the agenda. Four beautiful babes alternating naps, snacks, and movies. Lots of ice cream. Lots of laying around. Heaven.

I am also enjoying some leisurely reading. Most of the time, I am reading with a purpose. To learn something, to study for something, or preparing for an upcoming time of teaching. But today, it’s all fluff. Magazines to be exact. A good old People. A new one my Mom signed me up for called life:beautiful. It’s basically a Christian Martha Stewart Living. Very nice. And my new favorite: Family Fun. I’m not sure where I got signed up for it, but it comes every month and it’s chocked full of great creative ideas for kids.

So, I’m reading this article about a woman who has eight kids who was exhausted with the amount of dishes she had to do every day. ( I can relate.) She was so tired of having to wash and clean up after all her kids that she decided to come up with a radical solution. She went to the dollar store and bought each person in the family one bowl and one cup. They each were allowed to decorate it with their name and then she packed away all the other dishes in the house. Each child was then responsible for their own dishes. In the morning, they would eat their cereal and then hand wash their dish so it would be ready for soup at lunch. At dinner, they would eat their salad, head to the sink and wash it out, and then fill it up with spaghetti. If a dish was left on the table, she instantly knew who was the culprit. In addition to that, the child would have to clean up their bowl before they could eat their next meal and she loved that they learned how hard dried out Mac and Cheese is to clean up.

I was impressed with her solution! What a great idea! No more piles of dishes in the sink. No more stacks of plates on the table for the dog to try and eat off of. No more sinking feeling when the dishwasher is still running from the last batch, and the counter is already full enough to do another load.

Continue reading this article at “Easier Isn’t Always Better – Part II“