Hey there! Wow, it's been a little while! We just had one of those super-nasty-you-can't-get-away-from-it-no-matter-what-oh-no-it's-back-for-another-round stomach bugs visit our house.
Um, anyone have any "tips on how to avoid spreading germs in a big family"? I sure could have used them!
So we've kind of just been in survival mode for awhile. Not a lot of planned dinners, just more chicken noodle soup and Gatorade. Not so much making lists and going grocery shopping, just picking up whatever essentials we ran out of (chicken noodle soup and Gatorade!) and calling it good.
Somehow cleaning the house gets harder when you're living in that day-to-day mode, too. And while I did okay keeping my laundry washed, it didn't always get folded. And all my favorite chore ideas kind of went out the window for awhile. Stations is our favorite, but it kind of doesn't work if one or more kids are sick in bed.
So we had to revert back to an old, old favorite of mine. Twenty Things. This is as simple as it gets. Nobody is in charge of a room, nothing is assigned to any one person. Everybody just cleans up twenty things, then you're done.
I have five kids capable of cleaning, so if we each clean up twenty things, that means that within two minutes, 120 items that were out of place are now put away. And no matter how messy your kids are, 120 things is a lot. It makes a huge and immediate difference in your house. It's completely fair. And it's fast.
I love it.
If my house needs more help than that, sometimes I will call it "Thirty Things". Or "Forty Things". I also tell them to pick 20 things that will make the biggest difference, or I'll have them do another 20 Things. This helps ensure that nobody is picking up twenty crumbs off the counter and calling it good. They're going for the toy in the middle of the floor, the socks under the table.
And when we're done, I don't have a shiny, perfectly clean house. But I do have a clear floor. And sometimes, that's enough.
Kate
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