PLAN. Plan plan plan. Oh, gods, plan...

[ailbhe]

Well, plan part one is get to bed before midnight. Now that illness-related infant jetlag is over, that might happen. It's lovely when Astrid is happy, engaged, interested, and active, but not at 2am.

Plan part two is tomorrow's to do list.

I want to get the kitchen sorted out, cook dinner, and do as much structured home ed as the girls are up for. I think it's time to introduce angles, triangles, the protractor, the globe and the clock, because I think Linnea will really enjoy that, but I could be wrong. It might be time to rehash fractions instead. Or as well. She's been complaining about the words twelve, thirteen, fifteen, twenty, etc, and refusing to count.

Today I agreed to pay Linnea 5p for unusual Helping At Home, though in general I'm against paying people to help around the house. Emer joined in and only realised at the end that she should be paid too, if people are getting paid. So tomorrow I might try to exploit this and bribe them to do more things, though I am adamant that I will not be paying anyone to learn anything; Linnea tried to get me to pay her to do reading earlier. Nu-uh. I said, and I quote "Learn or don't learn, it's up to you. But I won't pay you for it." I can't imagine any more effective way to stop her learning right off than to pay her for it. Urgh.

On the other hand, paying her to do housework might well teach her a good deal, in its own way. Or me. That's what the practise baby is for...

Anyway, kitchen. Dinner. Home ed. Swimming lessons. Somewhere in there, we need to wrap Christmas gifts, make Christmas cards, and get ready to send parcels places.

After the children are in bed, Rob and I hope to relax by shelving and cataloguing books. This isn't age and parental decrepitude; this is what Rob and I have long, long considered a cracking night in. Wicked, as Camilla might say.

Comments

[rmc28]

Shelving and cataloguing books is totally a cracking night in.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

I pay my children 10p a chore (& a chore can last from a few mins to an hour & they haven't realised this yet) I wish my mum had done this with us, as I may then have left home knowing how to cook & do housework.

[ailbhe]

We just did it, or not. We did all leave home knowing how to do most things; where I *really* needed to learn as an adult was not how to do it, but how to do it over and over with no-one telling me to.

[ailbhe]

Heh, we didn't get paid *or* pocketmoney, though we were allowed to keep tips from the café work.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

I used to tidy my room, hoover downstairs & wash up every other night (when I was older) My middle brother was supposed to do all that too, but never did (& still doesn't now)

[clarahippy.livejournal.com]

I got a punishment once to iron all my dads work shirts that week for something deemed particuarly bad (probably cheek). At the end of the week my mum thought it had been so good she offered to pay me per shirt if I continued. I think it was 20p a shirt but I was at least 11.

[juliet]

I used to do the ironing as a teenager at 20p/shirt and 10p/anything else.

[ailbhe]

I'd completely forgotten that my little sister was paid to do ironing and shoe-polishing. I forget the rate though.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

I was paid 10p a page to read the Iliad and the Odyssey the summer I was twelve.

Still resent it.

I might've enjoyed them if I'd read them in my own good time.

[ailbhe]

yeah. I don't really think housework can be enjoyable, so that's ok. But reading?!