Monday, weekend recovery day
September 13, 2010 by Stephanie
Monday, September 13
Good morning! I wrote back in January that I try real hard to chill on the weekends with the heavy cleaning and instead step it up a bit on Mondays in a “weekend recovery.”
Jill wrote to me last week and said that she was having a challenging time with this because she hosts a Sunday dinner for 12-15 each week and doesn’t fully recover until Wednesday. This wouldn’t be a problem if Jill was okay with the way this turns out, but she’s not. Instead, she’s beginning to resent her sisters and their kids and her mom—which isn’t a good thing.
Jill and I chit chatted a bit, and it looks like it’s not possible for dinner to be held elsewhere. But we did brainstorm a few possible ways for things to run a bit more smoothly so Jill wasn’t stuck with the grunt of the clean up and anguish.
1) keep the bedrooms closed. When you’ve got little kids coming over, you’ve got to kind of confine them to an area where the mess can’t spread. Bedrooms are for sleeping, and when you’re trying to wrestle over-tired kids into bed at the end of a long night, the last thing you need to do is step over GI Joes and Lego pieces, or find that all of the church dresses are pulled from the hangers at the bottom of the closet because of a dress-up party. It may seem harsh at first to lay groundrules for play, but the fact is that YOUR kids come first. They need to have one room where they know that their special soccer and karate trophies are safe and sound.
2) TAKE THE HELP. Unless you’re entertaining total clods, most people at least offer to clear dishes and load the dishwasher. TAKE IT. Use it. ESPECIALLY help from your family.
3) Have an end time in mind, and stick to it. In Jill’s case, she has an ongoing family dinner date. This makes it even easier because she can let it be known that her kids go to bed at 6 or 7 or 8 or whatever and tell her peeps to get out thirty minutes before bed time.
4) limit the alcohol. People get lazy when they drink. They’re more apt to ignore kid bad behavior, and not as likely to want to step up to help with tidying up. And if you drink too much you’re more likely to adopt a “whatever” attitude (totally fine if that’s how you want to be, but not so good if you’re annoyed the next day) and not accept offers for help, resulting in a house hangover the next day.
How’s that all sound? Doable? Mean and controlling? Any other ideas for Jill?
Today:
You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them. ~Desmond Tutu
Make sure to have ALL the kids do the clean-up before family members leave. If this is tricky, do it an hour before time to leave and play a kids’ DVD after the room is clean.
And this is family – you can just ask them to help. “Sister, do you want to clear & load or rinse the dishes?”
Have the family bring over dinner instead of Jill preparing everything.
Kids can also bring their dishes to the sink and help with cleaning up and setting the table. Maybe someone can watch her kids the next day so Jill can recover.
Move the dinner to Friday or Saturday night so that on Monday, she is recovered.
If all esle fails, only have dinner every other week. On the off weeks, maybe meet for Ice Cream or a park picnic.
Poor Jill. Why can’t her family cook and bring it over? Maybe her sisters need the link to your crock pot site.
In my family we’ve tried various solutions to this problem, to no avail. Me, my mother and her 2 sisters end up cleaning up everything. And its always a 3 course meal with (too many) drinks. We do put on music, which helps, and kick the kids out. Unfortunately we have some family members who don’t know how to clear their plates, and do not respond well to being told.
In the beginning, the husbands ( who were just boyfriends at the time) would take a turn doing dishes. that ended as soon as everyone got married.
My mother tried to start a tradition at Thanksgiving by putting numbers on pieces of paper under the dinner plates, so 2 people got the wishbone and 2-3 got dishes.
This would have worked out well, until cousin’s BF said ” i’, m not doing any f*&%$@ dishes.” dead silence. that tradition never got off the ground. ( sigh)
My aunt orders out and serves everyone on paper goods that she buys in bulk. Then the men and the old timers complain about eating on paper.
What about girls vs. boys for dishes? Clearly it won’t work in my family, but maybe it will work for Jill’s.
I hope your cousin didn’t marry that guy. I’m sure your mom was too nice to put him out on his rear, but that is ridiculous.
What about having a structured activity for the kids to prevent mass mayhem with toys? Something simple they can do before/after dinner like coloring pages, small seasonal craft, board games, or even making shapes with toothpicks and marshmellows. As a last resort, make it family movie night! Don’t feel bad about setting some limits when you are the one feeding everyone and being the hostess.
Even though Jill is hosting by having it at her place, maybe her family can host it by bringing EVERYTHING over, from food to paper plates to games for the kids. That way everything goes home and is clean.
Also, Jill shouldn’t spend too much time cleaning before they come over (save the mopping and vaccuuming until after they leave).