Friday, March 16

Linked 52 | Week 11 - Underneath

One big rule I insist upon in our house?  You can't go outside to play or have free time until your chores are done (during the week your homework must be done too.)  Call me a mean mom, but it's the only way to keep some sort of order around here.  If I don't insist upon it and let them run off and play or watch TV after school, it becomes 8pm on a school night and nothing is done, messes are everywhere, kids are up late finishing homework, and Mom is frazzled.

In the past, the kids would run and do their jobs, tell me they were finished, and dash outside before I had the chance to respond.  Of course I would later discover how some jobs were skipped, toys left out, etc, so inspections became necessary.

Now - my youngest Tanner is a master of messes.  He has been that way his entire life.  I sometimes refer to him as Tanner the Tornado because you can tell when he's been in a room by the path of destruction he left behind.  He's four and a half now and much better about cleaning up his messes.  I'm so proud at how quickly he picks up his things and puts them away.  I will inspect and sure enough everything is picked up and he can go off to play.

However, I recently discovered why he's been so fast in cleaning up:



This is underneath my bed.  Tanner's new trick?  Take all those things that Mom asked me to put away and go stash it under someone's bed (usually mine) and hopefully she won't notice. When I found out this week's theme of underneath, I knew exactly what I would take a picture of.  This was a few days ago and sure enough I discovered some treasures: a dirty shirt, a sock, a garbage truck, and a Lego figure.  Who knows how long they've been there, but it explains why I couldn't find his other matching red sock!

So as far as Tanner is concerned, his inspections now include looking underneath beds :)




Check out these other talented ladies to see their take on this week's theme:

15 comments:

Naomi said...

Ha! Whatever works, right?! Great shot :)

Just Rhonda said...

hahaha that is funny!!! MY son does that too!

Simply Sara said...

haha. i can relate to everything you just said.
i'm a mean mom too and make my kids do their chores and homework before playing too. too much chaos otherwise :)
with 4 kids i think we are forced to maintain some kind of order. haha.

my kids favorite thing to do is hide all their toys underneath the couch in the basement. now when i do inspections (yup- i do them too!) i need to lift the couch and make them put all those toys away too!!

penandview said...

chuckling to myself...you should see what I find underneath my daughter's bed! I totally feel your pain! She leaves pieces of herself where ever she goes and I'm constantly telling her to clean up! Well, now you have photo proof, should he ever try to defend himself later down the road!

Jean said...

LOL! That is toooo funny! Hiding it UNDER YOUR BED. I had to read that a few times. You almost can't even get mad! But you're definitely not a mean mom for having them doing their chores & homework before play. That's important for a child. Just look at is as... do you think we'd get paid if we didn't work for our money? I mean, unless we have a suga daddy! Lol.

Love this. Great shot!

Unknown said...

What a mean mom you are to make them do homework and chores :-)
Good job!
You should have seen underneath my youngest's bed...scary

Jessica said...

My son totally tried that the other day and I caught him. Not gonna fly! I think cleaning up before play is a great idea, that way, I agree, it doesn't gat to be so late it is unmanageable. Good job!

stacey said...

Ha!!! Totally made me smile. Underneath my daughter's bed....well, let's just say it's not pretty. :)

Love your new header, btw!!

Andrea said...

What I think is funniest is that he stashes things under YOUR bed! HA! Kids kind of roll with the "out of sight, out of mind" thinking, don't they? Max has those socks too. :)

Heather M. said...

love the new look of your blog. :)

and your photo for this week's theme totally cracked me up. kids are so funny!

Kristin said...

the blog looks great!! let me know if you want me to make any changes!! I hate when kids shove stuff under the beds! Great under shot!

Liza B. Gonzalez said...

I find things stashed underneath beds, sofas and dressers ALL the time! Drives me crazy! But you have to give him some credit for being resourceful.

Amy said...

Pretty clever little guy! We have that Toy Story garbage truck, too!

Amanda Kelley said...

This is so cute! It's moments like this we need to capture more of! Love your new header to the blog, beautiful family!

tracy said...

sounds like something my 4.5 year old would do! what a great story for this week's theme!