Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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Bookswithtea
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Posted: March 29 2007 at 8:53pm | IP Logged Quote Bookswithtea
Oh! I wanted to add that I ruthlessly insist on the "one cup a day" method. We have a spot on the counter where we keep each child's cup for the day (the youngers use plastic in different colors or sippy cups and the olders use mugs, usually). If it gets dirty, they have to clean it. If they can't find it, they may not have another thing to drink until they do.

If all the bowls for cereal are dirty, I don't let them dig into the tupperware. I make them wash a bowl, or a spoon, or whatever we are short of. Everyone has kitchen chores.

I still do the bulk of the work, but these little things have really helped.

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Cathmomof8
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Posted: March 30 2007 at 12:32pm | IP Logged Quote Cathmomof8
Kim,
If you could see my kitchen right now you'd wonder what business I have commenting on this. ;) BUUUUUT, we've tried some things that have worked for at least periods of time. We have 8 children 18yo-1yo and six of those are boys! A few things....

1. We don't pass food at dinner. Dh and I serve the food with often the help of the starving teens who know they can't eat until everyone - even Mom - has food and we've prayed.

2. One of the children is responsible for clean up after each meal. I help some. But each child is also supposed to put their own dishes in the dwer and you can be sure that the 14yo does NOT want to clean up his sister's sloppy cereal mess so he'll go to the end of the earth to find her and bring her back to clean it up.

3. the highchair, booster seats and/or bench that the littles sit at usually have crumbs and other left over food around them. I just don't always have that free hand to attend to those things right when the little gets out.

4. 9yo and up prepare dinner Tuesday nights on a rotating basis - and all of the dinner, including finding a recipe, making sure we actually have the ingredients and modifying the recipes to feed all of us.

5. color coded the cups kids used to eliminate the kids from using all of the glasses before 10 am. For over 10 years we've also had each kid have ONE color coded bath towel and that helped sooooo much with laundry and bathroom towel clutter. Our teens now have 2 towels since they shower so often.

That said, I fully commiserate with you. Things like kitchen tasks, laundry and the day to day chores can be disheartening - never feeling like your on top of it all, doing the same things over and over, telling the kids the same thing over and over, dealing with the clutter, etc are all crosses for us. Add then the hsing, and wow! We really aren't meant to get it ALL done.   

Glad you had a good day and are feeling better. We're all right there with you and somedays we've just had enough!!!

Theresia
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10 Bright Stars
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Posted: March 31 2007 at 6:02pm | IP Logged Quote 10 Bright Stars
Thank you all so much for your wonderful encouragement and advice. I wasn't able to take a peek at the list for a couple of days, and Ruth mentioned that I should look because this was still a hot topic! It is encouraging to hear that it is fairly typical to feel overwhelmed in the kitchen and that other kids are messy eaters too! I am trying to just focus on a few manners at a time to start things off with them.

I did order the home ec course that Jennifer mentioned! It looked like something my girly girl daughter Mary (age 5) would just love, AND I must admit that there were a few things listed in the table of contents that I didn't know in the later courses, so I can't wait to receive it in the mail and get started. (I just ordered the first course to check it out.)

I have taken the challenge to get the kitchen under my control and not having it control me, especially emotionally. The pantry is stocked and organized, and I have tried to take a renewed interest in baking. Anyone have any good morning muffin recipes? I thought I could freeze a ton of those on Saturdays since my kids have eaten cereal forever now due to morning sickness! I felt badly about that and wanted to offer different options now and then for breakfast. My 12 year old seems to like cooking pancakes, and has made them for the family several times this week. The interesting thing about the pancakes that I noticed is that the kids TOTALLY forgot about a 10:30 snack. They were full until lunch which is not the case when I fed them cereal; they were always begging for food an hour later.

Thanks again!       

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