Train Up Tuesday: Clean Up, Clean Up! and Check out This Giveaway!

I promise, I'll get to the giveaway soon! FIRST, I have to share a "funny" with you. :) A few weeks ago, in an effort to train my 2 "big" boys (5 & 3) to help with cleaning, during nap time I wrote words and symbols on post-it notes of chores for them to do after nap. Each boy had their own color post-it note. I used words to help the 5 year old learn his reading. I used symbols to help the 3 year old figure out what to do. I took pictures of the notes for what I hoped would be a great idea for Roof readers (yeah, I know, I'm rolling my eyes, too ;-).



Then, the magical moment came. My boys awoke from nap, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and looked around the living room at the post-its covering walls, tables, windows. It was like CHRISTMAS!!!! I tried to explain what was going on as they looked around the room (note to self: with boys, at least, always explain what is going on before showing ANY pictures....that's why they grow up looking at instruction pictures and not reading directions as adult males). My oldest "got it". He was delighted to spray windows with cleaner and take a rag to wipe it down. He moved pretty well through the room looking for more notes and jobs (and he still asks for me to do this again)....My middle son who I just have to say never fails to unintentionally make me laugh rose to the occasion (of making me laugh, that is). He raced quickly around the room to grab all of HIS post-its...neverminding what they were instructing him to do (I think maybe he wiped down one table leg). I loved it, though. He felt he had really mastered something (I mean he HAD actually cleaned up all those notes!!!). I just smiled, and patted him on the back, and shook my head. Oh well, he'll get the lesson on that another day. Meanwhile, he's been busy playing "trashman" through the house, so I'll take it!

Okay, thanks for bearing with me on my story. That just cracked me up! Now for the "giveaway" part. The whole "teach your child to enjoy cleaning" idea came from my reading "Large Family Logistics," a book I don't actually own but borrowed and bought to give away to one of you guys a while back. Well, head on over to "Life in a Shoe" to learn how you can have SEVERAL chances to enter to win a copy of the book. They are giving away 4 copies across 4 blogs by 4 moms (lots of 4s in there!). And each blog has multiple opportunities to get your name in the hat(s). You only have until Wednesday (July 13) to enter, so stop what you're doing (I mean, after reading this blog entry, naturally) and go enter! ;-)

Hope you have a happy day,
Ashlie