"Mom, Can I Scrub the Toilet?"

"Can I mop the floor?"

"What else can I do?"

"When can I shovel the driveway?"

"I like scrubbing the toilet!" (exclaimed by The Archangel just a few minutes ago)

These are some of the comments we've been hearing around here lately. "Have all your munchkins been taken over by aliens?" you ask. Nope, we've finally found some motivation to get them to help out around the house more.

We have been selling stuff on ebay lately. Casinodad happened to see that Lego figures (not sets, just the people/characters) were going for some incredible prices. He took a little of his Christmas money to buy a bunch of Star Wars Lego sets. He lumped about 20 figures together to put on ebay & almost doubled his investment, & still has more figures to put on!

"What are you going to do w/ the rest of those sets?" I asked.

He wasn't sure at first, but suddenly it came to him - get the munchkins to do some housework to earn the sets! So, we sat down & brainstormed household tasks that were doable for their ages. Each task was assigned a certain amount of money (not real money, just credit that we would run a tab on). Once they reach a particular level, they earn the Lego set of their choice. To get a set, they have to pay 1 1/2 times the amount of the retail price. For example, they can get a $9.99 set for $15.00. For The Princess, who isn't as into Legos, I found some dolls that were mine when I was a little girl & assigned a price to each.

They still have regular chores that they don't "get paid" for doing - making their beds, cleaning up their toys/rooms, etc. This is just a little motivation to help out more around the house. They won't always get stuff for doing these things. As they get older, we'll change to an allowance type program, but for now it's nice to hear "Why does he always get to vacuum? When do I get to do it?"

PS - For some reason, no matter how many spaces I put between each paragraph, Blogger is not accepting them. Sorry all the paragraphs are jumbled together. If you know how to fix it, please let me know.