Today, in honor of my daughter’s return home after nearly a year away, I’ll do some special things. I’ll take a shovel to the living room, dust off the piano, and put her computer back on her desk. I’ll string up a banner that says, “Welcome home” and I’ll bake a cake to celebrate. I may even brush her dog.
My daughter left last August for a year in France as an exchange student and I’ve missed her every day since she’s been gone. I’ve missed her fresh face in the mornings. I’ve missed how she hides behind her hands when she laughs. I’ve missed her sitting on the end of my bed at night, reading lists of things she’s going to do the next day or next week, while I try to keep my eyes open and look attentive.
Watching my child leave home for a year was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I cried for the first two weeks that she was gone. My husband held my hand, patted my back and handed me tissues. “How can you be so calm?” I wailed. He shrugged. “I just know that anything that happens will have already been taken care of by the time we hear about it. There’s nothing I can do from here and there’s no sense worrying.” I told him, “You’re so unnatural.”
He was also absolutely right. Eventually, I quit crying and had an existence outside the one my daughter was leading far away, sort of. I set the clock in the living room six hours ahead and then I’d look at it during the day and think, “Now, she’s getting ready for school. Now, she’s in her favorite class. Now, she’s having dinner with her host family. Now, she’s crying her eyes out in her room.”
The phone calls back and forth were difficult and hilarious. My youngest son, by mid-October, was routinely telling her how he couldn’t even remember what she looked like anymore. My oldest son would tell her how much he missed her and it would take both of them a half hour to recover. Her father, who has a little French, would talk to her about the proper way to conjugate French verbs. I would ask her how to say important things, like “stuff,” and “stalker,” and “homework.” Then, I would listen to her recite what she’d done during the week and try to sound like I was paying attention (Amazing telephone reception — she could hear my eyes glaze over, an ocean away).
For the past three weeks we’ve hosted her fifteen year old French brother here at our house. He’ll stay another week after my daughter gets back and then he’ll return home. He’s looking forward to seeing his adopted sister again. She’d written before he came and told us to take good care of him and not make fun of his accent. We promised. Instead, we’ve been teaching him useful American phrases.
For instance, recently he came into the kitchen where my husband was making dinner and asked, “What means ‘Cut it out?’ Is it, ‘Shut up?’” “No, it means, ‘Stop it,’” my husband told him, whereupon he immediately walked into the living room where my oldest son was playing the piano in a particularly atonal way and yelled at him, “Cut it out!” It makes me wonder what kinds of useful French phrases my daughter picked up last year.
My daughter’s host parents have written me that she matured a lot this year while she was gone and I believe them. I can see it in her letters home and in the pictures she’s sent. I’m expecting an older child to walk through the door today but I also know that she will be different in other ways, too.
Her view of the world has grown bigger than what’s in her own back yard. It’s not just the difference between fifteen and sixteen, it’s also the difference between making plans for the next twenty four hours and making plans for the next five years. Her horizons have expanded this year to include a whole other half of the planet and so have her goals. I suspect her lists won’t be just about what’s happening in the next couple days anymore, they’ll be about what she has planned for the rest of her life. The next time she comes to sit on the end of my bed and tell her dreams to me they might take a little while to get through. I’d better get comfortable.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Endless summer, endless chores
School’s out, summer’s here and that means it’s time to get out The Endless Chore Game.
Chores are not popular at my house. Nobody looks forward to them. Nobody appreciates the trouble I take to make sure that everyone has chores to do that will build character (“Why do I have to clean the bathroom again? I did it last week!” “Because you did a terrible job and you need more practice.”). Nobody thanks me for assigning chores that are a good fit for them (“You told me I did a great job on the bathroom this week so why do I have to do it again?” “You’re so good at it I’ve decided to make it your regular chore.”).
Chores are not easy to think of. By the second or third week of summer I’ve lost all my zeal for assigning things that actually need doing, like washing windows and weeding the garden, and I’ve settled for assigning things that can be done without direct supervision, like answering the phone or checking the mailbox.
Chores are not contagious. My children see me doing chores all the time, so how come they’re not patterning themselves after me? If you’re a reader your child will most likely be a reader, too. If you’re athletically inclined it’s a cinch at least one of your children will embrace sports. You’d think that watching me work like a dog would induce my children to sweat buckets in order to be just like me, but it hasn’t worked out that way.
A few years ago, desperate at being faced with another long summer arguing about chores, I invented The Endless Chore Game.
The Endless Chore Game has no winners or losers, just players. It’s called “Endless” because it has no start and no finish. Your game piece just goes around and around the path, until summer’s over and it’s time to put the game away.
Here’s how it works. I make a board with a circular path on it, divided into about 40 squares and I write a different chore on each square. These can be simple and boring, like scouring the kitchen sink or more complex and interesting, like making dessert for six people for less than $5.
The finished board looks like a Candyland game, only the images are more sinister. Instead of kids climbing ice cream mountains and playing under gumdrop rainbows, I draw pictures of kids mowing the lawn and washing dishes and sweeping floors. In the corner on the upper right is a shadowy adult figure, arms crossed, tapping her foot. I think it sets the mood.
I put the board on the refrigerator door and the kids use magnets for game pieces. Every day in the summer, they take turns rolling dice and moving their pieces to find out what chores they have. It’s not completely grim. The board has a few free spaces with fun stuff, like cloud watching or pudding construction or singing Old MacDonald Had a Farm on the porch in three part harmony.
This will be the third year of playing the Endless Chore Game in our family. Every summer I modify the rules a little bit. For instance, you’re not allowed to reverse direction anymore. This keeps certain resourceful players from moving back and forth between free spaces for the duration of the game, thereby getting almost no chores at all compared to everyone else. And I’m toying with the idea of assigning points to certain chores, so that if you land on the “Paint the Garage” square you don’t have to roll again for a week.
Some members of the family enjoy games so much they leap downstairs every morning and play the Endless Chore Game first thing. I think it’s the thrill of knowing you might get lucky and get no chores at all for the day. It feels like a mini-vacation almost. Some family members are less enthusiastic, suspecting that the Endless Chore Game is not really a game at all, but just a way for a certain parent to get out of having to face unpleasant realities, namely, being unpopular in the name of character building.
I love The Endless Chore Game. I even play it, although, technically, I do chores whether or not I roll the dice first. I don’t play because I lack a list of things that need to be done. There will always be chores in my life. I will always feel obligated to do them and to insist that my kids know how to do them. Chores are required. The Endless Chore Game just makes them more interesting. Well, all right, and there’s something else. The truth is, I’m still shooting for the “Sing Old MacDonald on the Porch” square, and I have a feeling this might be my lucky summer.
Chores are not popular at my house. Nobody looks forward to them. Nobody appreciates the trouble I take to make sure that everyone has chores to do that will build character (“Why do I have to clean the bathroom again? I did it last week!” “Because you did a terrible job and you need more practice.”). Nobody thanks me for assigning chores that are a good fit for them (“You told me I did a great job on the bathroom this week so why do I have to do it again?” “You’re so good at it I’ve decided to make it your regular chore.”).
Chores are not easy to think of. By the second or third week of summer I’ve lost all my zeal for assigning things that actually need doing, like washing windows and weeding the garden, and I’ve settled for assigning things that can be done without direct supervision, like answering the phone or checking the mailbox.
Chores are not contagious. My children see me doing chores all the time, so how come they’re not patterning themselves after me? If you’re a reader your child will most likely be a reader, too. If you’re athletically inclined it’s a cinch at least one of your children will embrace sports. You’d think that watching me work like a dog would induce my children to sweat buckets in order to be just like me, but it hasn’t worked out that way.
A few years ago, desperate at being faced with another long summer arguing about chores, I invented The Endless Chore Game.
The Endless Chore Game has no winners or losers, just players. It’s called “Endless” because it has no start and no finish. Your game piece just goes around and around the path, until summer’s over and it’s time to put the game away.
Here’s how it works. I make a board with a circular path on it, divided into about 40 squares and I write a different chore on each square. These can be simple and boring, like scouring the kitchen sink or more complex and interesting, like making dessert for six people for less than $5.
The finished board looks like a Candyland game, only the images are more sinister. Instead of kids climbing ice cream mountains and playing under gumdrop rainbows, I draw pictures of kids mowing the lawn and washing dishes and sweeping floors. In the corner on the upper right is a shadowy adult figure, arms crossed, tapping her foot. I think it sets the mood.
I put the board on the refrigerator door and the kids use magnets for game pieces. Every day in the summer, they take turns rolling dice and moving their pieces to find out what chores they have. It’s not completely grim. The board has a few free spaces with fun stuff, like cloud watching or pudding construction or singing Old MacDonald Had a Farm on the porch in three part harmony.
This will be the third year of playing the Endless Chore Game in our family. Every summer I modify the rules a little bit. For instance, you’re not allowed to reverse direction anymore. This keeps certain resourceful players from moving back and forth between free spaces for the duration of the game, thereby getting almost no chores at all compared to everyone else. And I’m toying with the idea of assigning points to certain chores, so that if you land on the “Paint the Garage” square you don’t have to roll again for a week.
Some members of the family enjoy games so much they leap downstairs every morning and play the Endless Chore Game first thing. I think it’s the thrill of knowing you might get lucky and get no chores at all for the day. It feels like a mini-vacation almost. Some family members are less enthusiastic, suspecting that the Endless Chore Game is not really a game at all, but just a way for a certain parent to get out of having to face unpleasant realities, namely, being unpopular in the name of character building.
I love The Endless Chore Game. I even play it, although, technically, I do chores whether or not I roll the dice first. I don’t play because I lack a list of things that need to be done. There will always be chores in my life. I will always feel obligated to do them and to insist that my kids know how to do them. Chores are required. The Endless Chore Game just makes them more interesting. Well, all right, and there’s something else. The truth is, I’m still shooting for the “Sing Old MacDonald on the Porch” square, and I have a feeling this might be my lucky summer.
Hello, my name is Marie and I'm a piler.
I suffer from piles. Piles of work, piles of papers, piles of clothing. My home is full of piles.
In my sons' room there are piles of toys, piles of dirty clothes and piles of books. I ask them to pick up the piles and they do, but within 48 hours they're back again, the contents rearranged, but in much the same spots as they were before, as if there were pile magnets in the corners and under the bed.
Some piles are when-I-get-around-to-it piles. The one on top of the desk is the to-be-filed pile. Some piles are piles-in-transition. The lump next to the front door is the things-to-be-brought-up-the-stairs pile, part of which will be added to the clothes-to-be-put-away pile on top of one son's dresser and another part of which will be put on the pile-to-be-brought-up-to-the-attic.
Some piles are promises. I put photos in piles with the idea that I promise to sort them into albums at some future date.
Some piles are guilt piles. There is a pile of magazines on my coffee table that I haven't had time to read but since I bought the subscription I feel I ought to at least riffle them once before I give up entirely and throw them away.
Some piles are object lesson piles, like the pile of videos and dvds, not in their cases, which I refuse to put away because I didn't get them out and if I continually pick up after certain people in this house they'll never learn to pick up after themselves and will turn out to be pigs and no one will ever marry them and I'll be stuck with them and their piles forever.
Some piles are permanent. On the shelf of the entertainment center is an "electronics pile" where I throw headphones, game boys, joysticks and memory cards, because it's pointless to leave them on the floor all day for when certain people get home from school in the afternoons. I mean, sometimes I need to walk on it.
There are change of plan piles, like the one in the corner of the living room with stuff that I planned to sell in my garage sale which I was going to have because I thought we'd be moving, but since we're not moving, at least not any time soon, it's still there in the corner along with the pile of cardboard boxes that I was planning to use to pack up the stuff I didn’t sell.
Some piles are indecisive. Like the pile of scarves and mittens still sitting by the back door because I haven’t convinced myself that just because it’s May it won’t still snow next week.
Sometimes piles are sentimental. In my basement, I have piles of sketchbooks and letters and drawings and sculptures, things that I made or that friends sent or that my children brought home from school. Piles of feelings and memories that I can’t bear to throw away.
Sometimes piles beget other piles, like the sock basket with paired socks in it, a direct spinoff of the original sock basket that contains socks with no matches yet but might someday when the dryer decides to spit them back out.
Sometimes piles are spontaneous, like the piles of shoes, jackets and backpacks that suddenly accumulate on the floor by the front door whenever the kids come home from school.
When I had cleaning help, my piles got transformed into stacks. Once a week, the piles would go from being mixed up messes to neat and orderly stacks of like things, all the papers and books over here, all the toys over there, all the dirty clothes down in the basement next to the washer. I’d look at the stacks and feel like I was making progress with my piles because they were organized.
I admit that I have guilt over the sheer numbers of piles in my house. I’ve checked out piles of books on the subject of clearing the piles away. It always results in my feeling energized about getting rid of the piles, until I realize that until and unless I can get all the rest of my household to feel the same way, the piles will keep coming back. I’m assuming here that when half of my household leaves to start their own lives somewhere else, the piles in my life will diminish in size and scope. I know some people who thought the piles in their house were because they had kids, but when the kids left they had to admit that it was themselves and not their children who had been the pilemakers all along. I suspect I’m heading toward the same revelation down the road.
I wonder, is the propensity to produce piles genetic? Are my children doomed to have piles, too? Or is it something I can train them to avoid? How would that be possible if I’m the one that’s teaching them to make piles in the first place? Is there a twelve step program for dealing with piles? Maybe I could start one. “Hello. My name is Marie Marfia and I’m a piler.”
I’m planning on moving my office from my basement to a new space this summer and for a while I contemplated having a pile free existence. What would it be like to work in a room with no piles in it? Bare floored and with corners that I could see into, table tops with nothing on them, except of course, the pile of computers and scanners and printers that I need to do my job. Hmm. Piles seem to follow me wherever I go. But it’s fine. I have a pile of ideas about what to do about it.
In my sons' room there are piles of toys, piles of dirty clothes and piles of books. I ask them to pick up the piles and they do, but within 48 hours they're back again, the contents rearranged, but in much the same spots as they were before, as if there were pile magnets in the corners and under the bed.
Some piles are when-I-get-around-to-it piles. The one on top of the desk is the to-be-filed pile. Some piles are piles-in-transition. The lump next to the front door is the things-to-be-brought-up-the-stairs pile, part of which will be added to the clothes-to-be-put-away pile on top of one son's dresser and another part of which will be put on the pile-to-be-brought-up-to-the-attic.
Some piles are promises. I put photos in piles with the idea that I promise to sort them into albums at some future date.
Some piles are guilt piles. There is a pile of magazines on my coffee table that I haven't had time to read but since I bought the subscription I feel I ought to at least riffle them once before I give up entirely and throw them away.
Some piles are object lesson piles, like the pile of videos and dvds, not in their cases, which I refuse to put away because I didn't get them out and if I continually pick up after certain people in this house they'll never learn to pick up after themselves and will turn out to be pigs and no one will ever marry them and I'll be stuck with them and their piles forever.
Some piles are permanent. On the shelf of the entertainment center is an "electronics pile" where I throw headphones, game boys, joysticks and memory cards, because it's pointless to leave them on the floor all day for when certain people get home from school in the afternoons. I mean, sometimes I need to walk on it.
There are change of plan piles, like the one in the corner of the living room with stuff that I planned to sell in my garage sale which I was going to have because I thought we'd be moving, but since we're not moving, at least not any time soon, it's still there in the corner along with the pile of cardboard boxes that I was planning to use to pack up the stuff I didn’t sell.
Some piles are indecisive. Like the pile of scarves and mittens still sitting by the back door because I haven’t convinced myself that just because it’s May it won’t still snow next week.
Sometimes piles are sentimental. In my basement, I have piles of sketchbooks and letters and drawings and sculptures, things that I made or that friends sent or that my children brought home from school. Piles of feelings and memories that I can’t bear to throw away.
Sometimes piles beget other piles, like the sock basket with paired socks in it, a direct spinoff of the original sock basket that contains socks with no matches yet but might someday when the dryer decides to spit them back out.
Sometimes piles are spontaneous, like the piles of shoes, jackets and backpacks that suddenly accumulate on the floor by the front door whenever the kids come home from school.
When I had cleaning help, my piles got transformed into stacks. Once a week, the piles would go from being mixed up messes to neat and orderly stacks of like things, all the papers and books over here, all the toys over there, all the dirty clothes down in the basement next to the washer. I’d look at the stacks and feel like I was making progress with my piles because they were organized.
I admit that I have guilt over the sheer numbers of piles in my house. I’ve checked out piles of books on the subject of clearing the piles away. It always results in my feeling energized about getting rid of the piles, until I realize that until and unless I can get all the rest of my household to feel the same way, the piles will keep coming back. I’m assuming here that when half of my household leaves to start their own lives somewhere else, the piles in my life will diminish in size and scope. I know some people who thought the piles in their house were because they had kids, but when the kids left they had to admit that it was themselves and not their children who had been the pilemakers all along. I suspect I’m heading toward the same revelation down the road.
I wonder, is the propensity to produce piles genetic? Are my children doomed to have piles, too? Or is it something I can train them to avoid? How would that be possible if I’m the one that’s teaching them to make piles in the first place? Is there a twelve step program for dealing with piles? Maybe I could start one. “Hello. My name is Marie Marfia and I’m a piler.”
I’m planning on moving my office from my basement to a new space this summer and for a while I contemplated having a pile free existence. What would it be like to work in a room with no piles in it? Bare floored and with corners that I could see into, table tops with nothing on them, except of course, the pile of computers and scanners and printers that I need to do my job. Hmm. Piles seem to follow me wherever I go. But it’s fine. I have a pile of ideas about what to do about it.
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