Chores vs. Blessings.

My home is chaotic.  Sort of.  Well, let me put it this way:  2 years ago, I divorced my husband (long and irrelevant story but kind of part of this, so that's all I'll say.)  and I moved a 3 bedroom house into a 2 bedroom apartment.  we have paths, to say the least.  Well, I've been decluttering and reorganizing but the kids are fighting me.

My current (and last!) husband and I are moving to PA in about 6 weeks.  I am in full panic mode.  I have SO MUCH STUFF, that I "love" and want to keep, but there's no reason for it.  So, I started to get stuff to declutter and deep clean so I don't have to pay extra when we move out of the apartment.

Anyway, to my subject line:  The kids and I have been fighting each other over "chores".  To them, (and honestly to me) it sounds like "heavy, burdened, boring, back-breaking work."  That's a LOT to fit into one word.

ding!  Lightbulb moment.  First, it's my job to teach them that there are things that we "have" to do just because we have to.  For example, I have to have the dishes washed so the kids can eat off of clean plates, right?  Well, instead of doing the boring, depressing, trudging work of washing dishes (yes, our dishwasher sucks; it leaves grit over everything!  I think it's circa 1988 or something- whatever it matches the wonderful piece of engineering that is our antiquated fridge.)  I am BLESSING my family!

I enjoy the fact that I can bless my family and when I get to bless my family, it's not a laborsome "chore" that I'm obligated to do, but it's a joy and a blessing that I GET to do for my family.

Well, intro this concept to the kids.  My children took to it like ducks to water!  They were absolutely excited that they got to help mommy by blessing her!  Shoshi (not her real name) my 7 y/o cleaned the kitchen floor for me yesterday as I did dishes.  Jubu, (not his real name either) my 5 year old was my gopher. Everything I asked him to go for, he did, and he also dried dishes for me, while Shoshi put them away.

They blessed me by doing something that I would normally have to do.  They didn't look at it as laborious, they looked at it as something nice to do for mom.

Because of this, we have officially changed our word "chore" to "blessing" and it's making all the difference in my home.  Another reason for that is because we get to bless others with the toys that we have but never use anymore.

Blessings.  They're awesome!