Summer Sanity Savers

OK...so we are a month into summer and about a week ago, I thought I was going to lose it!! My kids have been pestering me all day, everyday, since the minute school got out. If it's not "I'm bored," it's "I'm hungry!" OR they would be tattling on their brother for picking on them OR tattling for not watching what they wanted on TV OT tattling on them for not playing the right video game or watching the right movie...AGGGHHHHHH!!! I was seriously considering shipping them off.

So here are a couple things I did to save my sanity.

#1) A new and improved CHORE CHART that was easy for everyone from my 10 year old to my 5 year old. I've tried chore charts in the past and none have been successful. However, we are on week 2 with this one and my kids have done chores every weekday morning with no problem. I made each boy a set of cards with chores on it. I made a card for EVERY chore in the house!!

Then I bought this $5 shoe holder with large pockets that fits on the back of my laundry room door so the chores are ALWAYS up for the boys to see.

Each boy has there own row of pockets. the 1st pocket holds ALL there chore cards. Each night I go through the boys stacks of chores and pick out the chores they need to do the following day. I put these chores that need to be completed in the 2nd or "DO" pocket.

When they have completed there chores for the day, they put them in the 3rd or "DONE" pocket. The last pocket is a reward pocket. I don't really believe in allowance BUT my boys have been wanting to visit a few places this summer that are expensive (like castles and coasters or Wet-n-wild). I figure IF they actually do there chores each day for a week, I could reward them with money so they earn there admission money for the places they want to go.

SO FAR...SO GOOD!! I'll keep you posted.

#2) A SUMMER FUN CALENDAR. I created a calendar that has a different activity for each weekday. IF my boys do there chores that day, then we do the activity. Such as: Monday is library day, Tuesday is friend day, Thursday is feildtrip day & Friday is movie day OR movie night. This keeps my boys from all pestering me for different things all day long, everyday. They just look at the calendar and know what we will do that day. It has really helped!! 

#3) KITCHEN IS CLOSED

My boys want to eat all day long during the summer months. I have food and drinks out CONSTANTLY all summer long. And worse, they eat crap!! Like an entire bag of dum-dums! So I've limited the open kitchen to certain times of days. If they don't eat when I'm cooking breakfast then they miss out of breakfast and have to wait till I fix lunch. I open my kitchen 4 times a day Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, Dinner. I also post a list of snack ideas on my fridge. So when they come to me and say "Mom, we have nothing good to eat!" I can just say "go check the list."