Surprising Motivation

We have a couple of friends coming over tomorrow, and our house is still not recovered from Christmas and Harris' birthday. So today, I decided that we were going to have to tackle the clean-up of all these toys. Like with most kids, it's hard to get them to stay on task while cleaning up, and in the process of wrangling them in, I also lose focus on what needs to get cleaned up. Usually, I get tired and frustrated and give up with a half-way clean and half-way messy house.

Today, however, I made a list. I showed it to the boys and explained what the list was. I even had them help think of things that needed to be put on the list. I told them how we would cross each thing off our list once it was done. I mainly did it to help me stay focused on what needed to get done. However, Harris got all excited about doing the list. He took it and a pen downstairs. I was cleaning up in the kitchen, but I overheard him telling David, "Okay, the first thing we need to do is, put away our cars and trucks." A few minutes later, I heard him telling David about the next thing on the list. Before I knew it, they had completed everything on the list, and Harris had dutifully marked off each item. I thought maybe they just did a half-way job just so Harris could cross off the things on the list, but when I went to check behind them, I was impressed at what a good job they did!

So, what was supposed to be a tool for me turned into a surprising motivation technique for Harris and David to clean up! Awesome! I'm going to go make some more lists now...