We have finally launched our Wiki site! A Jewish Homeschool Wiki that is open for everyone to come and read, use, post, edit, etc. It is similar to Wikipedia. We have a nice sized list of resources for Jewish and Secular studies, as well as various areas for other topics such as general homeschooling, legal laws in various states, etc. It still needs a lot of work and I hope that those who have things to contribute will help us out!
Well, I did not post last week mainly for there was not much new to post. Things are still the status quo. Baruch Hashem, Daddy’s foot is slowly healing. He has been working on using crutches so that he can go back to work in a few weeks. It will be much easier when he is able to put even a tiny bit of pressure on his foot. He still has to have it elevated most of the time, but he has noticed that he can have it down for a short time and it is still okay. I think that he is really overwhelmed with everything that goes on in our day! Four beautiful boys can get a little noisier than what he is used too. 😉
We actually did have some fun this past week for Grandpa came for a visit. It is always fun with Grandpa. It is always fun with any Grandpa! Grandpa paid them for vacuuming out the car – AFTER they were given a lesson on how much their time was worth in the real world – i.e. They spend a total of 20 minutes on the car vacuuming it (all four boys worked pretty much equally, according to their age.) So, they each worked about 5 minutes. If minimum wage is $8/hr, how much should Grandpa pay them?
They first worked out that they could do about 10 cars an hour, so that would make each car worth 80 cents for one person. So, Grandpa offered to pay them each 80 cents for their work. They were not too keen on that price. Grandpa told them he would give them each $3. And then upped it to $5 on condition they would buy him something at the store for him. 😉 Yes, Grandpas are fun. (And he decided he did not need anything from the store!)
There are times when I ask myself why do I bother? Why do I bother asking someone to do anything? A simple task of taking a hat from one room and putting it in the hat cupboard in another room can turn into a long hard task. Sometimes it gets tossed like a frizbee down the hallway 
(as if I will not see it there), and other times it gets put into a totally different room, sometimes even further away than its real home. I can call the beautiful boy who was given this simple task 3 or 4 times before it gets put away properly. And this is a simple task. We won’t talk about how many hours it takes to pick up all clothes, regardless of whether they are clean or not, and to shove them down the laundry shoot. (Yes, I will admit that I fell in love with the house as soon as I saw that laundry shoot, I really did!) That gets to be pretty ugly, and that is just the clothes, never mind any garbage or books or what not that need to be put away. It is almost always much easier to just do it myself and be done with it. Why do I take up so much of my time to ask someone to do any task when I *KNOW* it will mean it will involve so much time from me to manage the situation? Many times I think that my house would be cleaner if I did it myself, but then that just might be my wishing… At least there might be less frustration and therefore less exercise classes in raising voices if I just do it myself.
The answer is because I am raising children who will (hopefully) learn how to live and contribute in this world. My goal is to raise children who know how to do laundry, cook necessities, and clean. Note that I did not say they have to like it all, but they will know how it needs to be done. In other words, I put up with using my time to having to call a boy back 3 or 4 times just to put a hat away properly, or I will take a boy by the hand and physically take him to each piece of laundry that needs to be picked up because this boy just cannot do it on his own, no matter how hard he tries. I know that if I do not make them do any of this stuff, they will not know what is really involved in doing any of these things. Yes, I am sure that if they never learned any of these things, they would figure out how to use a washing machine and a dryer, after all they are pretty smart boys. However, once they move out on their own and are busy with a job and/or family, it is so much nicer not to have to worry about learning about all these things then – and they might keep some shalom bayis by not complaining as much to their wives! I guess it all boils down to the fact that I love them all. My time is just as precious as each of theirs and I purposely use more of my time to help train them into being the best they can be.
I do have to remind myself of this reason on an occasional basis but even then, I still do wonder if I would just do more of these things myself, perhaps my house would be in better order? Yes, I know the saying that says something like “I may have a messy house, but I have happy and healthy children,” but it would be nice to keep it a little bit better. It seems that the house is not too bad – as long as no one comes over – but when we have an unexpected visitor, it must be Murphy’s law that says without fail, the house will be in shambles. So, I have created another goal for myself. My goal – figure out how to make things a simple as possible. Is there any way I can help a boy who cannot clean up keep his stuff neater? I know that things will not be in 100% order (and nor do I want it to be that way, that is way too far for me!) but since I know I need to delegate chores to create a well-rounded person, I need to simplify things even more than I am now in order for them to reach their goals. I need to regroup and reorganize yet again so that Murphy’s law will only be effective 90% of the time. 🙂
I have been thinking about when we go away for several days, how I manage to keep the laundry done and how often times things are easier to cleanup. I’m sure that the fact that everyone only has 2-3 changes of clothing, and that we only take 1/10 of 1/2 of 1/4 of 1% of our books with us really helps, but sometimes we can get some enlightening by house something is done when outside the home which might help when we are home. We shall see, I have some ideas brewing in my mind, and I think very soon I am going to implement some or all of them. But for now, I still have to do some final cleanup here before I head off for bed. I know that I won’t get away with it all!