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Angie Mc
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If you can "do it all" - pass right by this topic  .
If you can't do it all, what things DO you delegate?
1. What things bring you the most peace, happiness, smiles?
2. What things are simply good enough?
3. What things have failed or brought more misery than if you did it yourself?
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1. I have delegated my floor cleaning to Roomba and Scooba  .
2. I finally started to delegate some of our laundry to my older children. I'm nervous and sooooooooo wish I could do it myself.
3. I have failed miserably trying to get help with my lawn. Sigh.
Thanks for brainstorming with me!
Love,
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Angie Mc
Maimeo to Henry! Dave's wife, mom to Mrs. Devin+Michael Pope, Aiden 20,Ian 17,John Paul 11,Catherine (heaven 6/07)
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folklaur
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well i would like to delegate doing the dishes but nobody else really wants them either....  
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wifemommy
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I am becoming the queen of delegation Seriously you should see our chore chart I have 6 kids that are various degrees of helpful with the older 3: 15, 13 and 10 doing a weekly rotation of the big chores vacumn daily,kitchen help and laundry. Due to allergy issues for me the house needs the daily vacumning and the basement can really bother my breathing so the they do the laundry in the nice weather I hang it out and I do help with folding and such. The kids do a lot of the kitchen clean up my 13 year old can load the dishwasher to within an inch of it's life The older 3 also deal with the outside animals. The 2 older girls each clean a bathroom and 10 year old mops. The younger ones pick up dust and sweep. I also broke our main living area into small sections ie 1 end table, the tv ,a bookcase and each child and mom has to keep their spot clean ....that so fixed the hot spot issue. When we are following this well it is great in about 20 minutes we can have a clean house everynight and it is not a 2 day event to be company ready.....Of course when I decide to clean out the game closet or other things come up um not so good However my goal is to make the end of this pregnancy and new baby fairly easy. I have a lot of sewing that needs to be done and I am planning to teach more cooking skills to the kids. Delegation is a good thing  Annie
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JodieLyn
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I'm trying to do more delegating.. I just need to be better at staying on top of the delegatees (is that a word? ) so that things still get done. A question of training all of us to do things this way. I'm even teaching laundry to the older kids.. and it's one that I rather like doing. Dishes are high on my list of things to delegate.. that and picking up floors
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Ruth
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We have weekly chores around here. I've delegated the floors- sweeping and vacuuming- to the boys, 9 and 11. The boys take turns every other week. My husband usually mops the kitchen. The trash is also done by the boys. The 3 teenage girls take turns doing dishes for a whole week, washing and folding laundry for a week. I hang the clothes on the line and take them down. That's what brings me the most peace, happiness, smiles. 
I am failing miserably with the bathrooms. I just can't keep up with them and nobody wants to clean them. Good enough for me.
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Ruth
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Erin
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I have completely delegated ironing to my dd16.
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folklaur
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Erin wrote:
| I have completely delegated ironing to my dd16. |
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what do you guys iron?
i pull my iron out like two times a year - and that is when my mom is here and needs it for her clothes...
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anitamarie
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I have delegated unloading the drying rack and dishwasher, (only I know how to properly load the dishwasher ), clearing and wiping the table, sweeping the kitchen floor, folding and putting away laundry, emptying trash cans, and bathroom cleaning to the 11 and 8 yo, the 5yo gets recycling and the 3 yo helps me (and the others) with everything I do. We're about to give 5 yo more responsibilities, and everyone else a bump up. I'm sure he will be overjoyed.
ETA: It's all good, just to not be overwhelmed by it all anymore. I don't mind if they don't do it perfectly, as long as they put forth their best effort, which they usually do.
Anita
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SusanJ
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cactus mouse wrote:
Erin wrote:
| I have completely delegated ironing to my dd16. |
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what do you guys iron?
i pull my iron out like two times a year - and that is when my mom is here and needs it for her clothes...
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You know, ironing is probably my favorite chore. But I haven't done it since my first child was born. I only use it for sewing and since sewing is definitely my least favorite chore you can imagine how often that happens. I only let dh wear wrinkle-free dress shirts (and if they have awful chemicals in them I don't want to know about it!).
I am a terrible delegater and this is a great thread for me to remind me that my 5yo and 3yo are at an age where I need to start training them to help--and start training myself to let them.
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stefoodie
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18-yo used to do our laundry (for the past 5 years i think) but now that she's in college i do it -- it was her THERAPY -- in fact one time i was trying to help her and she BEGGED me not to do it
13-year old loads and unloads dishwasher
10-year old clears and sets dining table with 7-yo
10-year old and 13-yo do trash and recycling on Tuesdays, with a bit of help from dad
they take down the laundry from time to time, 13-yo has done ONE laundry load b/c he was motivated (he didn't have any clean clothes left), i wash, they take stuff out of dryer onto couch for folding. they take their clothes up themselves and put them away.
13-yo mows the lawn.
7-yo and 10-yo scrapes the sticky stuff off the vinyl kitchen floor (what the 10-yo calls "slave work")
once i had the 10-yo match socks -- he called that "squaw work"
they HAVE to help me pick up stuff, ESP. if they're the ones that used/played with the items. otherwise i have a TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY.
they often vacuum for me
and sweep, and mop
and kill flies
and take care of the baby
but apparently, i cannot pay them enough to clean the bathrooms ( they inherited that attitude from me)
ETA: only for the past two weeks, i've done the kitchen myself (after dishwasher is loaded/unloaded). i've FINALLY figured out that it will never be as clean as i want it to be if i let someone else do the job -- they never know where EVERYTHING goes
i am embarrassed to say, we don't dust around here. or clean the windows. we've dusted only when there's a major party coming up. so maybe three times in the 3 years we've lived here. and windows are just way hard to get clean and maintain.
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stef
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KackyK
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Oh Stef, so glad you admitted no dusting and windows...same here. I have a brother who is very perfectionist, very high-maintenance and he said you know Kacky, this is pretty dusty (he was looking at a picture frame)...I said yep, why don't you dust it there?!!! It is what it is!
Dishes are delegated between 3 different children, but yet I still have to load it midday. Sad to say we run it twice around here. The basic pickup of rooms and vacuuming is done by dc. However, however! I can NOT get them to clean THEIR own rooms. It kills me! I guess out of sight out of mind and I shouldn't care. But you know what nags me...several years ago my mil saw my dd's room and I could hear her from downstairs say "wow, if you were my child your room would never be allowed to look like this!" UGH! Oh well!
Bathrooms, my ds just took this over from my dd. We use the Lysol wipes, expensive, but easy and my dh had issues with the the dc using a spray bottle of chemicals (dh sprayed his own eyes as a child with Glass Plus, obviously still unpleasant memories). I don't have my son do the master bathroom. I hated to do the master bath when I was kid. Not that it was any yuckier than any other bathroom...just thought it was sort of going somewhere private, does that make sense?
Anyhoo, I'm about 23 weeks prego now so it's time to make dc take on more laundry duties. This is always hard for us. I seem to become the constant nag, "switch the laundry between machines", "bring down the basket", "take the basket up"...I just can't seem to get anyone to follow through the whole process without hand-holding from start to finish...so I end up nagging. No fun for any of us. I need to come up with something here.
And here's one I hate to admit...I never mop my floor. I am referring to our kitchen linoleum. It is swept at least once a day or more for sure. But mopped...maybe once every couple of months. It kills my back and I can never psych myself up to do this. So, I am determined to teach someone before Christmas, that's my goal.
I have a very amazing ds age 12 (almost 13) who is awesome with the chores. I find myself burdening him more I think because I know he'll do it at the first request. Dd has to be asked at least 3 times before she moves, and the ds's 11 and 8 aren't totally capable to do some of the bigger jobs. And ds 7 and dd 4, boy they'd love to do everything, but just can't yet. I do hope their enthusiasm will carry over till they're big enough!
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Paula in MN
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Let's see....
Outside yard mtce.....dh and kids
Vegetable gardens.....all
Flower garden.........me
Dogs..................dh and kids
Vacuuming.............dd
Dusting...............ds
Dishes................kids
Laundry...............me
Cooking...............all
Bathrooms.............dh and kids
I think I've covered it all!
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KackyK
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I wanted to add about laundry delegation...
A friend of mine with 8 dc has delegated a day of laundry per child. Although her 3 youngest can't do theirs yet, this is when she combines theirs into one and does it herself.
Anyways, she has a week's worth of clothing options for each child. So they can go a week without washing their clothes. Then say child #1 has Monday. On Monday he does all of HIS own laundry from start to finish including his own towel and his bedding. Then the next day is child #2 and so on. Each child has a certain day to do their laundry. Obviously she has exceptions when she throws in the muddy soccer clothes for a special load and such...but this gets the towels and sheets done on a regular basis.
Then she does her and dh's laundry and the little boys'.
I'm considering this one!
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amyable
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Not.e.nough
Let's see, I've delegated the teaching of math to the charming Teaching Textbooks guys.
The agitating of laundry to my washer and the hanging to my dryer.
My dh brings home food if I call him crying.
Seriously, my kids do have chores, but we are working on making it more. I don't have time to list them because dd has a date with the Teaching Textbook guys right now and is impatiently waiting for the computer.
Quick aside - do any of you feel guilty when the kids are working and you are not? i.e. you've delegated a lot and you've done your work and they are still working? I have a lot of trouble with this for some reason.
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stefoodie
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KackyK wrote:
I wanted to add about laundry delegation...
A friend of mine with 8 dc has delegated a day of laundry per child. Although her 3 youngest can't do theirs yet, this is when she combines theirs into one and does it herself. |
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i've thought about this but don't know how i could make it efficient. what do you do when you have different load settings?
i.e.,
hot lights
hot darks
hot icky stuff (like bathroom rugs and mop heads, etc.)
warm lights
warm darks
cold lights
cold darks
i think what would happen if i let my kids do that is they'll lump everything into one load. and i would actually let them. except we'll probably end up with pink boys' underwear. they will *not* like that.
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DominaCaeli
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stefoodie wrote:
i've thought about this but don't know how i could make it efficient. what do you do when you have different load settings?
i.e.,
hot lights
hot darks
hot icky stuff (like bathroom rugs and mop heads, etc.)
warm lights
warm darks
cold lights
cold darks
i think what would happen if i let my kids do that is they'll lump everything into one load. and i would actually let them. except we'll probably end up with pink boys' underwear. they will *not* like that. |
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I lump all our clothes together when I do laundry and have never had any problem with bleeding at all. I wash brand new items by themselves to prevent bleeding, and then after that first wash, they go in with everything else. I have never separated by color, and I just wash everything on cold, all the time. And everything seems to get clean just fine.
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kingvozzo
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stefoodie wrote:
KackyK wrote:
I wanted to add about laundry delegation...
A friend of mine with 8 dc has delegated a day of laundry per child. Although her 3 youngest can't do theirs yet, this is when she combines theirs into one and does it herself. |
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i've thought about this but don't know how i could make it efficient. what do you do when you have different load settings?
i.e.,
hot lights
hot darks
hot icky stuff (like bathroom rugs and mop heads, etc.)
warm lights
warm darks
cold lights
cold darks
i think what would happen if i let my kids do that is they'll lump everything into one load. and i would actually let them. except we'll probably end up with pink boys' underwear. they will *not* like that. |
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I'm thinking that would probably be okay for my kids' stuff. They're stil a bit young, but I'm thinking this through here...they would really only be responsible for their everyday clothes. Church clothes would be seperate (they don't usu. get washed every week anyway), and I would still want to be resp. for all the linens and icky stuff. It could work!?
ETA: I was cross-posting with Celeste!
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KackyK
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I try to separate colors and such....it doesn't matter though. No matter what, I always end up with someone's black something or another or a red something or another in the whites, every time. Nothing has ever bled.
I agree about washing brand new items by themselves for sure though. Then they are good to go I have found.
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JodieLyn
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You don't have to give over the entirerty of a complicated task..
You can have "trainees" like with laundry.. think of how much time you'd save if you had someone collecting the clothes from all the various spots in the house and then you just oversee the sorting and loading of the washer.. and then let them bring in the dry load and fold and move the washer load to the dryer etc... basically get them to learn to do it like you do.. things that are more persnickity just require longer apprenticing.
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JodieLyn
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amyable wrote:
| Quick aside - do any of you feel guilty when the kids are working and you are not? i.e. you've delegated a lot and you've done your work and they are still working? I have a lot of trouble with this for some reason. |
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Oh my and you aren't having to chase around and keep everyone working even then?
You could lend a hand to this or that child.. especially in areas that could use a bit better quality control. Or do something only mom can do.. sort files or junk drawers or such.. or do paperwork stuff.. balancing the checkbook etc.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
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Topic: What do you delegate?
