The "Lazy" Games

"Never do for a child what he/she can do for themselves." Maria Montessori

Good morning!
It's been a while since I have blogged and believe me, I did miss it a lot but I had so much to do and I am still not finished with the task at hand but I have to share this with you.
I have begun a twist in this chapter of my life. I have begun to delazy and undependetize my children. Yes, those are two new words in the dictionary of life that I have just invented to explain my problem.
-You see, my children have alarm clocks and don't use them.
-Their bathrooms are less than 10 feet from the laundry room- and their dirty clothes are on the floor.
-They disrobe and sometimes put their clothes in the laundry basket with socks and underwear still in their pants, unseparated, and looking like they are invisibly still wearing their clothes, thereby causing me to have to peel them apart and put them in their separate hampers.
-They walk away form the dining room table and leave their dishes.
-They leave a mess in the bathroom-no explanation needed.

So that is my list for today, or at least everything I can think of at this moment that makes me crazy.
Now I was pretty sure that we had established the remedies to all of these problems before but as time has moved on and our family size increased, putting a strain on my already strained schedule and house full of clutter, these children have taken advantage of my lack of persistence and made my life difficult.
My husband occasionally chimes in and says, "You know they need to do that themselves." Well his hands off approach to parenting has made my work harder, so I thought I would take my own measures. (Oh, he was right, you know)
The latest craze in the world is "The Hunger Games" so since I have never read it nor seen it nor know anything about it, I thought I would use it's title to my advantage.

This morning I began step 1- make them get up on their own. (or at least in enough time to catch the bus because I AM NOT driving out to that girls school again this week!) Usually I go in and sweetly announce what time it is and that they need to get up and moving then I go downstairs and start on breakfast, then I go back upstairs and tell them that they are running late, then I go back downstairs and work on breakfast again, then a while later I go back upstairs and announce that they are LATE!
I realized how foolish this was months ago and how dependent that they have become on me to do this. The alarm clock goes off (when they actually set it), they roll over, cut it off and go back to sleep until I come and wake them up a few minutes later, again and again.


So do you see my problem? This kind of mess coupled with extremely late nights of coursework and still getting up early at 6am-ish and you can tell why I am tired, cranky and ignit. Now that I see the error of my ways, and I don't have time for anything other than my education(almost done!) and family, my time is like liquid gold raining down the drain. I want to sew, I want to travel, I want to go to bed before midnight. I want to be me again!

This week we started with getting up on time.
Next week we work the laundry kinks out. They are going to start doing their own!
Pray for me, this could get ugly!

Now the first steps have been taken and let this journey begin!!!!!