With our current schedule, we have to be creative about getting things done.
Let me back up. Before Madison's dance started creeping later and later into the evenings, we worked out a plan where the girls worked a ten minute cleaning into their evening routine. One girl got ready for bed (because even at the tender ages of not quite seven and eight they can't be in the same bathroom at the same time brushing their teeth and washing their faces).
When we set that up, we explained to them that cleaning didn't have to be a huge, massive, time sucking, write it on the calendar, take up an entire weekend thing if we did little bits at a time. Ten minutes of tidying up your room at night - making sure whatever toys or books you used are put away, making sure your laundry made it into the hamper - keeps things manageable. Wipe down the bathroom counter and hang up your towel.
It had mixed results, but we kept it up anyway. Effort and all that.
Now Madison isn't getting home until 8:00 or later, and we have to eat dinner and take showers and wind down and still manage to make it into bed before I feel really negligent. If Adam is traveling, Reagan is following the same schedule even though her dance never runs later than 7:00. And yes, it's only ten minutes, but it feels like that straw that will break us. So we let it slide.
We decided to start it in the mornings. I mean, the girls don't have to be at school early, so we can easily do something in the mornings. But that doesn't seem to work either. I can't figure that part out, but it's not part of our routine right now.
So I decided to embrace Reagan's fascination with YouTube, and we started the "challenge" mindset.
I proved to them it could be done with my "10 minute clean the car challenge" and my "10 minute clean the kitchen" challenge. You clean, completely uninterrupted for ten minutes. At the end, you're done. Done or not, and you get to take a before and after picture or a time lapse video if that's what floats your boat.
The girls were skeptical. They're much more into the "pause challenge" or the "don't laugh" challenge, but YouTube is YouTube and the girls liked the idea.
So we're trying it. Whenever we have a moment. And my two truly competitive girls love to show off what they can get done.
And we'll see how long it lasts!
