Christmas!

[ailbhe]

My birthday was Saturday, so now it's Christmas planning time. Christmas, that time of year when we're always quietly certain that we'll offend people and/or make the children unhappy! So good I spent New Year 2011 terrifyingly suicidal!

There are things I love about Christmas, and it's much better when we nestle down with just the five (previously four, or three) of us, but the payoff for that is always dealing with the people who want to be here too.

But we've had Hallowe'en and trick or treating and costumes, and I had a birthday cake and people sang Happy Birthday and I blew out the candles, and the children are making paper chains, paper angels, and paper snowflakes.

We really need to figure out how to keep the house from descending into absolute squalor when I'm ill. I'm doing the executive function for everyone and I need to sort that out.

Comments

"how to keep the house from descending into absolute squalor when i'm ill"

[feetnotes.livejournal.com]

(2nd attempt; 1st eaten last night by a grue)
'fraid i can't give away any infallible preventatives - or protectifs for that matter - i can & do manage absolute squaloid quite nicely, thank-you, and i live on my own; but I can offer a few tricks/routines/whatevers that either work for me, or i've seen work for others with two or more daughters in the family (males mostly, but not entirely, optional):

A. a place for everything - and for everyone, almost - it's the job of whoever brings a new thing into the home to find it a proper place in their personal stuffspaced when it's not being used/played with/etc. if it's not ruled to be a communal, family thing (like a new kitchen implement or whizzy). if it's a new communal thing, finding its proper place is a joint job, with the dictator pro tem (that's you) having a veto/final say.

B. whenever the dictator pro tem (that's you) or her duly appointed deputy wishes to, they may declare a general assault upon untidiness in the communal rooms, or one of them in particular, and everyone present must join in sorting out "my stuff" from "everyone else's stuff" and "probably rubbish", and put "my stuff" back into its proper place in "my space", then help put "communal stuff" back in its proper place and help littler sisters put their "my stuff" back in their "my space" - no-one gets to complain (much) about unhelped littler sisters being slow or missing things as it doesn't score points except bad ones for the complainer. everyone must help the dictator pro team sort stuff if/when they finish sorting their & littler sisters' "my stuff" as this helps save odd items that they think aren't rubbish - not really.


C. a - or possibly The - Rota, carefully ruled out and filled in by everyone in as many colours as it takes to keep littler sisters happily involved and people's daily jobs clear - including the dictator pro team's, so daughters can see who's still doing most of the "shared" communal maintenance work, but mostly so everyone can check and see if it's their turn to do whatever. again, no points scored for getting a sister into trouble for for get tint, save minus points; but points added for helping littlers and biggers who need it, especially if up to date on one's own jobs. Time for doing school homework gets rota-ed, too.

D. As part of everyone's pocket money depends on their doing their jobs and helping - yes, everyone's.

E. ask livi_short what worked for her with the wombats, mouse & woozle, cos they turned out pretty well, even if their mum was sometimes very very "not impressed" with one, other - or both wombats... (she's more enchanted by the next generation now, anyway - not to say besotted; but that's a grandma's prerogative :-) )

F. if you reassure kids, "tell me when you've been naughty, or bad, or broken something; i'll try to not lose my temper/be angry, but even if i am angry, i'll still love you: i'llalways love you...", which is a very fine thing, mean &act that way. saying it and not living up to it devastates a kid - i speak from personal experience - my mum played mind-games with us, including playing (?) favourites, and telling us it'd never make things worse, if we told her what we'd done - and she lied when she told us that.