The Work we Do

I have been thinking a lot lately about the work I do.  I have listened to a couple of books (The Goodbye Season by Marian Hale and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by /Betty Smith) this year that have made me realize that in many ways I have it very easy.  I have a washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, refrigerator, freezer, vehicles, central heat and air conditioning, clean running water, grocery stores, garbage collection, electric wheat grinder, mixer, oven, and a microwave.  All of these things make my life easier.  I have to make time to exercise because I am not exercising while doing all of the daily tasks that these modern inventions do for me.

I recently worked a day in the pharmacy.  The kids were home from school and Keith had the day off work, and agreed to stay home to take care of the kids.  I had not worked in the pharmacy since before Spencer was born, so I was a little worried about how it would go.  It was a great day.  I came home feeling refreshed, like I had a day of vacation and I even got paid for it!  It was work, but it was so different from the work I typically do at home with my children. When I got home Keith filled me in on some of the craziness I missed that day. 

In the past month Alyssa has missed five days of preschool because she has been home sick.  She had a really bad cough for the first two, was throwing up for the next two, and had conjunctivitis and and ear infection for the fifth day.  The rest of the family also got pink eye, and both boys missed a day of school because of it.  Keith has also been sick and missed some work.  Some days I feel like it is all I can do to just take care of my family, and am glad to be home to do this. 

I am trying to teach my children to work, and be involved in helping take care of our home.  Caleb and Parker have both become very good at vacuuming recently.  Parker has been doing extra chores this week because he wants to earn money to buy some toys.  Tonight while I was getting dinner ready Caleb was very interested in helping.  So I taught him to chop celery, he helped make the sauce for the stir fry, and after dinner I had him rinsing the dishes I was washing.  He told me he doesn't like to do dishes, but he had a lot of fun spraying them off.  In the past he has always liked the stir fry, but tonight he seemed even more excited about it. Parker was saying he only liked parts of it, but Caleb kept commenting how he loved all of it.  I do not feel like I am usually very good at teaching my children to work, and sometimes I want to do it myself so it gets done the way I want it done, but these are a few successes we have had recently.   I am grateful to a friend who posted on her blog about patience in teaching our children.