Monday, March 11, 2013

Why Is Yardwork More Fun Than Chores ?

With the warmer weather slated for this week, I felt it would be a good use of time to get started on the LONG list of yard work projects today.  Trimming the bushes was more work than I thought it would be, but it felt nice to get it done.

As I moved to the backyard, I quickly found that basically all of my children that can walk (6 of the 7) wanted to be outside "helping daddy."  I was moving retaining wall stones in anticipation of clearing the dead stuff from the flower boxes, which left trails of dirt and crumbled stone parts all across the back porch.  The 3 older kids were helping to uncover the stones and carry them to our staging/stacking area.  Bless Brooklyn's heart for being tenacious enough to carry some stones by herself because they are heavy!

And then a funny thing happened ... Ben and Brooklyn began to argue over who got to sweep off the porch/patio area.  They both wanted to do it.  This is not funny by itself, but in context is basically absurd.  You see, in the house the "sweep the kitchen" chore is by far the least desireable among my older kids.  In fact, they often fight about who did it last so they can avoid it being their "turn" again for as long as possible.
So I didn't have a picture of the kids
helping outside ... so here's Baby #007
Spencer Joseph @ 3 months old.  :)


It got me wondering ... why are "outside" chores more desireable for my kids than "inside" chores?  Is this a long-term situation where the kids will be arguing to help all summer?  Or is it just exciting now because it is new, different, and "with daddy" instead of alone?
Whatever the reason, I'll take the help as long as I can get it!

Song Of The Day:
Today's song is "Tough Little Boys" by Gary Allan.  I chose this because Josh Jr and Ben worked pretty hard ... and they both volunteered to help (and were sad when I said we were done for the day).  This showed me how "tough" they are, but it also turned me into a little bit of a "big baby" because they're growing up so fast!

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