Chores and the preschooler

I'm thinking it is time to implement a more specific chore schedule for Evelyn. She is three now, able to follow direction and understand why we ask her to do things. She can't vacuum the couch or pick up dog doo, but she can feed the dogs, help hold the dust pan, dust shelves within her reach, pick up her toys, etc. Right now she does none of this. She loves to "help" cook food by stirring or adding ingredients, and she likes to "help" sweep by doing it entirely herself (i.e., not at all). I encourage this helping, but we need more.

The big question is: To Allowance or Not To Allowance.

On one hand, teaching a child the value and use of money, and that money is given when it is earned, is an important lesson. Do your chores, get your allowance. Three may be a little young, but starting early seems like a good idea. However, I don't want Evelyn to associate money as the MOST IMPORTANT thing in the WORLD! Or that she gets money for every little thing she does.

On the other hand, chores are part of being in the family. I don't get money for making dinner and Jon doesn't get paid for doing the laundry, so why should Evelyn? However, a kid has got to have some sort of incentive for doing chores, or a good consequence for not doing them, to generate interest. I'm just sayin', my kid won't be putting away the silverware out of the goodness of her ornery heart.

I'm interested in chores now because I believe I've created an elitest monster. OK, OK, not really. But since we have house cleaners that come twice a month, recently Evelyn has started to say, "The cleaners will get that," when she drops food or toys. This clearly is not the way to go. And we likely won't have cleaners when we move to the new house (read: when we have a huge mortgage), so this free-ride she is imagining is coming to a quick end.

I'm trying to remember what my mom did. I know we had chores that we were expected to do every day with bigger ones on the weekend, and I know I got an allowance, but I don't know if the two were tied together. I think my mom's system for the big Saturday chores was if you don't clean your room and do one other thing (clean the bathroom, vacuum the house, etc.), you don't get to go out and have fun and be with your friends. I think. But that was well into adolescence and I don't remember a thing before it. I really have a terrible, terrible memory.

So what do you do? Do you pay your kids for doing their chores? Do they get an allowance completely unrelated to their household duties? Do you do a hybrid of both?

My crazy downstairs

This is what the downstairs is shaping up to look like in the new house. We currently have some of those items: the chinese armoire, the tibetan hutch, the green-ish sofa, the yellow subway tile backsplash, the grey-brown floor tiles, the dark brown kitchen cabinets and the white kitchen island countertop. We are contemplating a light gray or yellow wall (maybe with a chair-rail in there for good measure), and a dark grey wall behind the chinese armoire. I am absolutely IN LOVE with the very expensive zebra wallpaper, but we'll see about that. It looks like grey and yellow with red accents seems to be our first floor. Crazy?

Perhaps.

Roof!

Our house has a roof! It got a roof last week, but I didn't get around to posting any pictures. Here are said pictures:

Nice roof, eh? And look at that fabulous front patio. Small, but sturdy.

Wow, what a fabulous kitchen you have. Thank you.

Evelyn still is digging this whole "my room" thing.


We went to the house yesterday and it looks pretty much the same, picture-wise. The duct work is in, the furnace is in, the plumbing is starting to go in, and we have a front door. Not bad for Thanksgiving week!

I know house updates are pretty monotonous, but I can not describe the excitement I feel every Sunday when we head to the house site. I love it times a million. Every time I see a new plumbing line or a new wire heading somewhere important I am overcome by the excitement of building a house. MY HOUSE. OUR HOUSE. We picked all the finishes and the floorplan and the location. Everything about it will scream "Lew." The terror of carrying a mortgage for the next 30 years dissipates with every exciting discovery.

Planning our decor is almost as fun as seeing the progress in construction. We decided to let Evelyn pick out a paint color for her new room and--surprise, surprise--she picked "Batman!" We'll see if that desire holds true in a couple months when we move in, but we want her to be excited and happy with her new room, so if Batman is the man to do it, so be it.

We are planning my long-desired ecclectic-family-photos-up-the-staircase project. Something about an array of funny and meaningful family photos heading up a staircase says "family" and "home" to me. Maybe because we moved so much and didn't put a lot of stuff on the walls as a kid. Or maybe I just want to live in one of the homes from The Royal Tennenbaums. In fact, right now my design asthetic is a cross between a Wes Anderson movie and Anthropologie.

     

   

I can totally make that work without looking weird, right?

Thankful

This year when we go arond the Thanksgiving table to say what we are thankful for, I know the usual suspects will come out: family, health, jobs, a roof over our heads, the financial blessing to buy our first house, my daughter. I am truly thankful for these things. But what about the less obvious things we are thankful for? Things like:

1. SodaStream. This little contramption sits on my counter and provides endless seltzer water at the touch of a button. Add a little syrup, and it makes Sprite or Diet Coke. It is a dream.

2. Costume Jewelry. Not the fancy stuff, but the fun, inexpensive stuff that you buy because it is cute and trendy and $15. I love it.

3. Batman. Evelyn is in a mega Batman phase, and it is SO MUCH BETTER than a princess phase. I'd rather her idolize a butt-kicking dark anti-hero over a cutesy helpless special-because-her-dad-is-king character any day. Plus, capes are more fun than woodland creature friends.

4. Yarn. I don't get to knit as often as I'd like, but I still love yarn. I love the smell, the feel, the colors. I love the sheep it comes from and the awesome things you can do with it.

5. Sleep. Again, I don't get to sleep as often as I like, but I love every moment spent in my bed, head nestled upon my pillow. The greatest gift I've ever given myself was to marry a man who loves to sleep as much as I do, and doesn't think it is character flaw that I prefer bed to pretty much anything else.

6. iPad. I love it. The iPad is the greatest invention ever. Babysitter, library, jukebox, video camera, organizer, calendar, inbox, TV, movie theater, game center. It is magic.

7. Meg and Melissa. I made two new friends this year. That's probably the most friends I have made since meeting Jon. I may even have made a THIRD friend, Claudia, but that is yet to be seen. New friends feel awesome.

8. Queen. Evelyn really likes Queen songs, and singing along to "Somebody to Love" is the best ever. I'm glad I can enjoy some of the same music as my three-year-old instead of listening to Barney and Friends or A Very Chipmunk Christmas over and over and over...

9. Tim Tebow. Aha hahaha! Psych! No. I hate Tim Tebow.


So what are you thankful for outside the realm of family, friends, jobs, homes, money, health, smiles, children, parents, pets, etc?

Rapping knuckles

Today I signed Evelyn up for preschool. She'll start in January, about a month before we close on the house. It will be a long month of driving her all the way up to our new neighborhood, but we felt it was better than making all the bazillion changes she'll experience with this move in one day. So one month of seriously annoying driving is nothing compared to a happy child.

We enrolled her in a Catholic school. Yep, Catholic. Like nuns-in-habits-rapping-her-knuckles-with-a-ruler Catholic. Except her preschool teachers look to be about 15 years old, so I'm pretty sure they aren't nuns. But they also have giant smiles, warm handshakes and nice things to say, so maybe they are. What do I know? Their participation in the community of women religious is really not my concern.

In fact, I have no concerns with sending her to a religious-based preschool. We might have to start telling her about church and God and Jesus and mass and religion, but only in the three-year-old context, which I'm pretty sure is low-level stuff. She will go to mass once a month with her class, and her school is full of crucifixes and pictures of the Pope and paintings of saints, but I don't think Evelyn will ask a lot of questions about those. If we really love this school and she ends up going there for a few years, we'll probably have to dive into more serious religious topics, which means I'll have to spend a little more time sorting out my own religions questions. However, good schools come in all sizes, and I think this will be one of them.

With the new school comes a lot of changes, including packing a lunch. I am (re)newly obsessed with adorable bento boxes and fun bento accessories. I'm hoping that if I make her food look a little fun she might actually eat something more than Pirate Booty and corn dogs.

Look at this. So cute, right?

I am so ecstatically excited about Evelyn going to a real bonafide preschool. She has been languishing in her daycare for the past 6-8 months, but we didn't want to move her before we relocate. Maybe languishing isn't the right word. She has outgrown the daycare. She knows all her colors and shapes, she knows a lot of her letters, she knows all the animals and how to play with all the toys. She is the oldest kid there and way too smart to be spending most of her time with 18-month-olds. I have a feeling her mind will blossom in a new age-appropriate environment. I think her spirit will expand when she gets to play with a whole room of children her age. I think it will be amazing.

 So bring it on, preschool. We are totally ready.

(Now ask me about it in three months and I'm like to tell you a different story. Let's just pretend I will be spry as new glass...)

My house is a very very very fine house

One week ago...

 Three weeks ago...

House Hole

My house hole, last Sunday. I'm standing in the kitchen, roughly.

My house hole, now with foundational walls! This Sunday. We did not stand in the kitchen because it was quite muddy and difficult to traverse. Note how in one week the house to the left got siding, the house in the back left corner got a second story, and the house behind ours got a roof?  It is all so very cool.

More updates to come.