Three on Thursday (Again)

I'm always interested in housework, probably because the actual deep cleaning is my least favorite part of keeping our home. Do you clean each room on a given day, clean the whole house on one day, or simply clean as you see things are needing it?

  

Generally, I clean in shifts.  My basic schedule looks like this:

• Monday-- vacuum downstairs and change the sheets every other week
• Tuesday--vacuum upstairs
• Wednesday--dust
• Thursday-- clean the bathroom
• Friday-- do any chore that was missed during the previous days

This is the bare minimum, though.  With five children the floor (especially around the table) needs to be vacuumed more than once a week.  The bathroom mirror needs to be cleaned after almost every tooth brushing.  The kitchen counters needs to be wiped down multiple times a day.  This is just part of life with a big family and I do these little jobs as they come up, regardless of  my cleaning routine.  Rarely do I set out to clean the whole house in one day.  It would be too overwhelming and I like the feeling of small accomplishments each day.

What responsibilities does Brian take on around the house, or do you take care of everything at home?

When Brian is off from work every winter, he takes on far more house chores than I would like him to.  It's not that I don't appreciate his assistance, but I feel that since I am the keeper of our home, he should not have to do my work.  But who am I to argue with someone who wants to help?!

During the ten months of the year that he is at work, we have a groove that we have fallen into.  I handle the laundry, schooling, and meal preparations.  I also handle all of the cleaning except for a portion of the vacuuming.  About every other Sunday, he enjoys doing a thorough vacuuming of the downstairs.  He is able to get into places I don't even attempt to tackle since I usually vacuum with a baby on my hip.   I also try to have all of the dishes caught up when he gets home from work, but he washes the dishes after dinner while the kids and I clear the table and put the food away.  On nights that he works late, I do the dishes myself and I realize what a blessing it is to have him do this every other night.  Taking out the trash is also his thing.  Gavin is getting old enough to take over some of the responsibilities, but since our Dumpster is across the street, the job usually falls on Brian. 

I'd love to hear about your new house. What's it like?

The secret is out!  We are in the process of buying our first home.  I should have mentioned that before now, but it has been quite an emotional and tenuous journey (the subject of another blog post, perhaps?) We are beyond excited to be spreading our wings, both in a metaphorical sense and a more literal sense since our new house sits on a 2-acre lot.  After spending our last six years in a townhouse and sharing a yard with our neighbors, the idea of our own space is exhilarating.  

Our current townhouse is a 3-bedroom with no attic or shed so we've been living out of only two bedrooms and using the smallest bedroom as storage space.  Our new house is a moderately-sized 3 bedroom, 2 bath home, but gaining an extra bedroom and an extra bathroom is going to be a luxury.  We are also looking forward to having a dishwasher. 

These questions were submitted by Allyson.   Leave me your 3 questions in the comments and I'll tackle them another Thursday. 

 

Three (More) on Thursday

Who does the grocery shopping? (Brian does ours and I feel un-Proverbs 31-like because of it.)   

Well, my Brian does ours, too, and I often have the same feelings.  I hear of other women going to the grocery store with their whole brood in tow and I wonder if maybe I should  or could do the same.  However, this is what we've chosen and for now, this works for us.  I do all the meal planning and the list making.  He does all the shopping and bringing it in the house.  We both put it away, I do all the cooking, and the whole family does the eating! 

How much TV is too much (for the kids), and what do you feel is actually worthy of watching? (I feel like mine are watching waaay more lately...but we're also reading, both independently and aloud, waaay more than we used to)!   

Tough question because I am constantly torn about this myself.  I do not have a  set TV limit, but we are certainly not a household that has the TV on all day.  We read lots of books, spend time outside, color reams of pictures, do some crafts, build Legos, and play pretend with paper dolls.  Because I know my children are physically and mentally active, I do allow a little down time in front of the television.  Of course, when they are sick I allow a little (a lot?!) more and when it is warm and sunny day, I allow a lot less.  Each day has its own set of circumstances. 

As far as what they watch, I think we fall on the conservative side.  My kids watch nothing straight from the television except PBS Kids, and their DVDs are carefully chosen.  One of my children is very sensitive to what he sees and hears and has suffered nightmares from seemingly innocuous selections. 

How in the world do you wean a nursing baby? I mean, seriously, I'm clueless!   

This is probably too big of a topic to tackle in one small paragraph, but I'll give my short answer.  I've fairly successfully night-weaned my children at around 18 months, but I've never done much in the way of initiating day-weaning because it just sort of happened.  Gavin nursed the longest (longer than most people feel comfortable knowing about), but he outgrew it eventually.  (I "outgrew" it long before he was ready.)  The other three weaned when I was pregnant with the  next baby.  Whether it was the taste of the milk or the quantity of the milk or whether they sensed my reluctance to continue or whether they would have naturally weaned around that time anyway, I'll never know. Of course, they didn't just go from ten times a day to none.  It was gradual, gradual reduction.  There will be a day when you think that it is never going to happen...and then before you know it, it has.

These questions were submitted by Kathi.   Leave me your 3 questions in the comments and I'll tackle them another Thursday. 

Three on Thursday

What's your favorite thing to do?  I could never narrow this down to one thing because I am always in the middle of multiple things at once.  I am guilty of starting too many sewing projects and scrambling to get them all done.  I'm guilty of starting more than one book at a time and leaving them in various rooms of the house, reading a chapter here and there until I finish each one.  I'm guilty of having a string of blog posts or ideas started and be excited about them all at once.  I bake and watch movies and write letters and I enjoy it all.  As long as I'm at home with my little family, I'm content.

Coffee or Tea? If I had to choose, it would be tea because I don't like coffee at all, but I'm really more of a hot chocolate girl.  In the summer, it is Coke!  Most of the time, though, I'm good and just drink water.

Dream vacation?  In all seriousness, I don't care where we go as long as someone packs for me.  It is too much pressure to decide who needs what and how many.  We took a vacation one year in early summer.  Brian said we should all pack jackets and I said, "In June?  That's just another thing to take up room in the suitcase."  So he packed a jacket  and the rest of us packed T-shirts. And you know what? When we got to our destination, it was 65 degrees and cloudy and we had to go to K-Mart and buy everyone long sleeve shirts. 

These questions were submitted by Carrie.   Leave me your 3 questions in the comments and I'll tackle them another Thursday.