Time

It is time for me to talk about time. I am not going to discuss hours, minutes, or seconds. I am going to write about weeks. Ten weeks to be exact. I have been blogging for ten weeks now. The time has gone by quickly. It is time to finalize my post.

I want to take the time to thank the viewers who have spent their own time reading my blog. Your comments have allowed me to enter into your lives, and learn a little about you. I enjoyed reading your comments, and catching a glance at how you live.

It is time to stroll down memory lane. These past ten weeks have allowed me to recall old memories, and create new memories. In my first blog I went back to the birth of my daughters. I remembered family dinners, and Sundays at church. With Christmas approaching, memories were rekindled of Christmas past. Childhood games played with neighborhood friends were recalled.

During the time of ten weeks, I made a number of memories also. Painting rooms turned out more difficult than I thought. One post was about doing chores with my children. The fighting and bickering are in the past, but working together is a memory.

During this time I did a lot of research on the Internet. I learned about a number of topics. I learned that no child is too young for child anorexia. I read a book on how my children can be highly effective teens. Emotions took over as I looked into child abuse.

I hope you enjoyed the time that I put into this blog. I encourage everybody to focus on children, and assist them in any way that you can. Time is drawing to a close, and now it is time for me to go.

Child's Play

The passing of the Halloween holiday presents all parents with the next daunting project. Christmas shopping. I stood in Walmart last week struggling to choose the best gifts for the amount of money I had. The unsteady economy has dampened the Christmas spirit.

Standing in the toy aisle, I thought back to my childhood. My dad was a manager in a small factory, and my mom was a house wife until I turned 10 years old. At that time, she went to work stocking shelves at a department store. My parents did not have a lot of money to buy presents for my two older sisters and I. Christmas presents for the family included new clothes, household necessities, bath supplies, and one toy for each of us. We were happy to get whatever we got.

My eyes wandered over to the shelves of games. Even now I get nervous thinking about the millions of tiny pieces in the games. In my house they get lost, stepped on, or broken. Then, there is the choking hazard for small children. What happened to the days when we could go over to a friend's house with nothing, and still find a game to play? A game that would amuse us, and keep us happy all day.

Tag was a big game with the children in my neighborhood. We would meet in my backyard. We had a playhouse in the back right hand corner. Since it was the farthest away, it was "safe." We spent hours giggling as everyone avoided "it." Every so often, we Incorporated Red Rover, Red Rover into our game of tag.

Red Light, Green Light brought enjoyment to our backyard also. One person stood in the back yelling "green light." At this command everybody ran forward. When the person yelled "red light" everyone had to stop and freeze immediately. Laughter couldn't be contained as people fell over or were statues in funny positions.

We soon realized this was a good way to play Simon Says. We took turns being Simon and calling out actions for the others to preform. We made our commands as difficult as possible. Of course, you could not do the action unless Simon Says. One by one we were eliminated because we didn't listen to instructions.

Hide and Seek was played at night. We screamed more as friends were found unexpectedly in shaded hiding spots. The only problem with this game is that nobody wanted to be "it." Everybody wanted to hide.

There were even games to play when it rained. The girls liked to play hand clapping games. Patty Cake and Miss Mary Mac are two of the chants that I can remember. I know we had a lot more when I was a kid. Each chant had a different rhythm. Different hand motions were preformed with each chant.

My older sister taught us Cookie Jar. All of the kids would sit in a circle. Each of us had a name of a cookie. Oatmeal, Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip, and M & M to name a few. One person would start by calling out the name of a cookie. The person with that cookie name had to call out another cookie as fast as they could. If they were not quick enough, said the name of a cookie not in the circle, or forgot their own cookie name, they were kicked out of the game. You had to be very fast to be the final cookie remaining. The last person was the winner.

Another circle game was telephone. One person whispered a couple of sentences into the ear of the person on their right. The sentences would be whispered around the circle. When the last person said the sentences out loud, we found it humorous how much the sentences had changed from the first person.

These games were simple and easy to play. Everybody went home happy. It saddens me to think that in order for a child to play a game today, it must have a least a dozen pieces. These games come and go, but I will never forget the joy I got with my friends from my childhood games.

Chores

Hectic schedules have become a daily occurrence in my life in the past few months. College papers are due, work schedules have increased, and the children are involved with more and more activities through school and church. Add on the Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas holidays that are quickly approaching. It seems my house is never clean.

I walk in the front door, and my eyes focus on the mud stains in the living room rug. I mentally remind myself to add that to my husband's "honey-do" list. I also notice that the dust on the table and shelves has gotten pretty thick. The floors need to be mopped. Dishes are overflowing from the sink. I wonder why my kids and husband can't go a couple more feet to the dishwasher. Going down the hall to the bedrooms, I catch sight of full laundry baskets. With a silent groan I realize that a mother/wife has a never-ending job. There are no off days for me.

This brings me to the topic of my discussion for this blog. Chores for children. What chores should children be responsible for? At what age should they begin certain duties? This has always been a disagreement between my oldest daughter and I. She feels I am letting my youngest get away with too much. I started my oldest doing jobs around the house at an earlier age than I started my youngest on the same jobs.

The dishes upset my oldest daughter the most. I admit that she started helping me when she was five. I would wash all the dishes and she would dry and put away the dishes that would not break. Now, she is 12 years old, so she loads and unloads ALL the dishes in the dishwasher, while my youngest washes the counters, takes out the garbage, and sweeps the floors. I am afraid my 9 year old would break too many glasses. My oldest says that my youngest is old enough to become responsible for the glass dishes.

My kids are expected to fold and put away their clothes. They were fighting while sorting their clothes, so I resorted to making them sort clothes separately. My youngest takes her clothes out first , and puts them away. Then, my oldest will put hers away. They don't always hang everything up, but I am fine with the clothes being put in the dresser drawers. I don't want to see items on the floor.

I recently added vacuuming and dusting their bedrooms to their list of chores. I have been hesitating on this task, because I don't want them ruining my vacuum cleaner. I fear they will ram it into walls or vacuum up items that don't belong in vacuum cleaners. My husband gets upset with ME when I vacuum up something by mistake.

Their final chore is to make sure all their belongings are picked up and put away every night. I am a firm believer in everything having a "place." I tell my kids that if things get put where they belong, they won't get lost. They say I am just being picky. At least I know where my shoes and hair brush are when I need them.

I get a lot of grumbling when chores are being preformed. I get annoyed, and my husband will remind me that they are kids and kids will be kids. We did a lot of complaining to our parents, and now we need to expect it from our children. I want my children to learn responsibility from their chores. I encourage them to know that people need to work together to get things done. Even cleaning the house. I want them to know they can't quit just because they don't like something. I hope they understand that hard work can create success.