Creating our own Family Rule of Life is giving each minute, object, and person purpose. Implementing our new schedules and household routines is very much still a work in progress, but we are loving the results so far. The kids are less whiny, the house is in order, we have more chunks of free time, and we are working our way toward a healthy balance.
One of my favorite parts of our Family Rule of Life is the children's involvement. Jane and Walt have chores that they perform throughout the day. Since we're still very early on in implementing our Family Rule of Life, the kids' chore time mostly consists of me training and guiding them along in their duties. It's a lot of work early on, but it's already paying off in a big way.
One of Jane's pre-lunch chores is checking our dog Monty's food bowl. If it's empty, it's her job to fill it up. I wish you all could have seen how excited she was to discover that his food bowl was empty before lunch today. "Mom! Mom! Monty's food bowl is empty! I'm going to fill it up, okay?!"
That, my friends, is a beautiful thing. Sure, we'll have to work on the proper amount of food to put in the bowl, but let's remember:
- The bowl is full
- I didn't fill the bowl
- I didn't have to nag to get the bowl filled
- The person filling the bowl did so cheerfully
- Did I mention that the bowl is full and that I didn't do it?
When Jane finished filling Monty's bowl to the tippy top with dog food, she asked me to inspect her work. She was BEAMING! She couldn't wait to hear my words of praise and recognize her work. "Mom! Look! I filled up Monty's food bowl! Here, Monty! Look, you have food in your bowl. Does that make you so happy?! Oh, you want to eat later? Okay, come back when you're hungry!"
I'll share some of our Family Rule of Life charts in a future post. I'm off to enjoy my coffee, fold some laundry, and listen to Fr. Riccardo's "Christ is the Answer" podcast.
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